Global Ganja Report

For the third time in ten years, New York City has agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle a lawsuit over illegal strip searches of thousands of nonviolent prisoners. The settlement, announced March 22, provides $33 million to the roughly 100,000 people who were strip-searched after being charged with misdemeanors and taken to Rikers Island and other city jails.

In 2001, under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the city settled a similar case filed on behalf of more than 50,000 people who were strip-searched as they waited to be arraigned, spending about $40 million. In 2005, the city again agreed to pay several million dollars, to settle the claims of thousands of people who were illegally strip-searched in at least six New York detention centers, including Rikers Island, between 1999 and 2002. The new settlement stemmed from a lawsuit filed in 2005 by the law firm of Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff & Abady, and covered 100,000 people from 1999 to 2007. (NYT, March 22)