By james art Officials from the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department’s office of inspector general and other US federal law enforcement agencies descended on the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on Monday, authorities said.
The law enforcement operation is “designed to achieve our overall goal of maintaining a safe environment for both our officers and inmates housed at MDC Brooklyn,” the Bureau of Prisons added.
The move comes as the prison faces increasing scrutiny over appalling conditions, rampant violence and multiple deaths, and amid efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons to fix problems at the prison and mislead under the responsibility of the perpetrators.
Last month, federal prosecutors charged nine inmates in connection with a series of attacks from April to August at the Metropolitan Detention Center, New York’s only federal prison.
The charges, released last month, detailed serious safety and security problems at the prison, including charges after two inmates were stabbed to death and another was stabbed in the spine with a makeshift ice pick.
A prison officer is also accused of shooting at a car during an unlicensed high-speed chase.
The criminal charges offered a window into the violence and dysfunction that plagued the prison, which houses about 1,200 people, including Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
The Bureau of Prisons said his operation in Brooklyn was pre-planned and that there was no “active threat.”
The facility, located in an industrial area on the Brooklyn waterfront, has about 1,200 detainees, down from more than 1,600 in January.
It is mainly used for post-arrest detention of people awaiting trial in federal courts in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Other inmates are there to serve short sentences after convictions.
Inmates at the Brooklyn jail have long complained of widespread violence, appalling conditions, severe understaffing and the widespread smuggling of drugs and other contraband, some of it facilitated by officers.
At the same time, they say they were subject to frequent lockdowns and were prohibited from leaving their cells for visits, phone calls, showers or exercise.