In 1979, inmates at the Westchester County Jail filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the Westchester County Department of Corrections under 42 U.S.C. §1983. The plaintiffs claimed that conditions of overcrowding at the jail violated constitutional guidelines and placed a strain on all of the facilities, including medical, food service, law library, and recreation. The plaintiffs sought preliminary injunction concerning these conditions.

On September 28, 1981, the court inspected the conditions at WCJ, which housed pretrial detainees. The court (Judge Gerard Louis Goettel) found that the overcrowded conditions violated constitutional guidelines and that the jail limited the inmates' access to recreation areas and other privileges. Vazquez v. Gray, 523 F.Supp. 1359 (S.D.N.Y. 1981). The court noted and defendants conceded that the strained conditions had contributed to riots at the jail in July of 1981. However, the court refused to impose a population limit on the jail and instead issued the following remedies on October 16, 1981:

1.      Prohibited the use of floor mattresses as constitutionally impermissible.

2.      Prohibited the housing of more than two minors in a single cell.

3.      Prohibited housing prisoners in dayrooms for longer than five days.

4.      Limited the use of dormitories to their present and planned uses, finding that the conditions within the dormitories did not amount to a deprivation.

Information regarding the jail's compliance with these remedies is unknown. In 2010, Davis v. Gusman, No. CIVA 09-7195, 2010 WL 1727825 (E.D. La. Apr. 13, 2010) refused to extend the ruling of this case.

Angela Heverling - 02/06/2006
Richard Jolly - 11/04/2014


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