A BuzzFeed News investigation showed the vast state agency left people
with disabilities vulnerable to abuse and neglect. Now lawmakers are
promising to take a harder look — or to eliminate it altogether.
By Ben Hattem
The state agency tasked with protecting New Yorkers with disabilities
failed to blacklist serial abusers, took almost a year to investigate
numerous cases without documenting why, and blocked auditors from seeing
more than 70% of crucial records, according to a scathing new report from the office of the State Comptroller.
BuzzFeed News reported
last year that the agency, the New York State Justice Center for the
Protection of People with Special Needs, often failed to prosecute abuse
and neglect. The Center took more than two years to press charges
against an employee of Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan who beat a patient
so badly that he broke several bones in the patient’s face — despite
the fact that the entire episode was caught on the hospital’s security
cameras. The new report from the Comptroller’s office adds to the
criticism of the troubled agency, which is expected to be the subject of
hearings in the New York State Assembly during the current legislative
session.
In addition, a member of the Assembly is introducing
legislation to eliminate the Justice Center entirely. “This agency is
legalized obstruction of justice and it needs to be abolished,” said
Thomas Abinanti, the legislator who is drafting the bill. Since BuzzFeed
News’ reporting on the Justice Center last year, he said, “nothing has
changed, there have been no improvements.”
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Source: BuzzFeed (via The Empire Report)
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