-: My name is Stefen Short.
I'm a staff attorney with the Prisoners' Rights Project
of The Legal Aid Society.
We're an organization that files class action cases
for people in state custody
and people in New York City custody.
Most of class actions
are about conditions of confinement in the jails,
anything from access to proper necessities
of life whether it's food, drinking water,
access to services in the prisons,
commissary programs, things of that nature.
We also file use of force cases against the city,
and then we file use of force cases
in the state system.
Essentially we exist to create
prisons and jails that are humane,
prisons and jails that rehabilitate
rather than simply punish.