Rikers Fight Club: New Law a Response to Jail Violence

Following a drumbeat of negative news about the city jail for teenagers, and after the outcry over the murder of 18-year-old Christopher Robinson there, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a bill yesterday that requires the Correction Department to disclose safety and census data on teens in jail.
   
Under the bill, Correction officials will have to post statistics to its website on the number of teen inmates in the system, and numbers on various types of violent incidents.
   
Those include stabbings, slashings, fights, uses of force by guards, serious injuries, concussions, internal injuries, suicides, and sexual assaults.
   
The bill follows calls for better transparency in the DOC's care of teen inmates. Robinson was beaten to death in the Robert N. Davoren Center last October by a gang of inmates.
   
The law is supposed to take effect July 1.