Students at Rikers still hurt: att’ys

Federal watchdogs should continue to monitor controversial and violence-plagued school programs for young inmates at Rikers Island, activists charge.

Since 1996, federal monitors have overseen educational programs at the city jail, to make sure teenage detainees are receiving legally mandated schooling, even while they're incarcerated.

The monitors' most recent report, published in July, was meant to mark the end of the oversight but still found safety concerns and a lack of resources deprived young inmates of their lessons.

In January, the program grabbed headlines after a spate of slashings kept students from getting to class, causing attendance rates to crater.

And in legal papers filed Feb. 1, lawyers for the Legal Aid Society responded to the federal monitor's report, arguing that more oversight of the long-troubled jail is needed.

Specifically, Legal Aid attorneys claimed that Rikers watchdog Peter Leone should remain on the case for an additional two years because the jail is still denying young inmates an education.

Leone didn't return a call for comment and a Legal Aid spokesperson declined to elaborate on the group's filing.

Problems with young inmates at Rikers Island go back decades.

In 1996, a group of 11 Rikers students filed a class action suit against the city for not providing them with basic schooling mandated by state and federal law.

The case is still ongoing while two sets of federal monitors have kept tabs on schools at the jail.

In 2002, Legal Aid lawyers joined the battle with a new suit making fresh arguments that the city failed to provide a proper education for teen inmates.

The city made sweeping changes to boost school options in the wake of the lawsuit, but problems persisted.

A “deep-seated culture of violence” against students at Rikers was uncovered by thenU.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a report issued in August 2014.