Corrections boss bucks oversight meeting
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Department of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina was absent from the Board of Correction’s monthly meeting earlier this week. File photo John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit
By Jacob Kaye
Just days after being admonished by a federal judge for allegedly attempting to buck oversight efforts, Department of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina skipped out on this month’s Board of Correction meeting.
Molina – and all other top DOC officials – decided not to appear before the civilian oversight board charged with keeping tabs on the city’s jails on Tuesday, a decision that came just hours before the monthly meeting.
According to the DOC, Molina and the department’s leadership were too busy preparing for a different oversight hearing – a City Council hearing scheduled for Wednesday – to appear before the board.
“I recently was contacted that the Department of Corrections will not be able to be here today because they're preparing for a City Council hearing,” Board of Correction Chair Dwayne Sampson said at the start of Tuesday’s meeting. “So, the Department of Correction will not be present today.”
When asked for further details about Molina’s absence from the BOC meeting, a DOC spokesperson referred the Eagle to Sampson’s comments made at the top of the meeting.
It’s a moment of acute crisis for the Department of Correction – which faces the ever-growing prospect of having Rikers Island stripped from its control by a federal judge for the agency’s failure to make the jail complex safe. Nonetheless, Molina hasn’t appeared to testify on the record before the BOC since March. In all, he’s only appeared before the board twice this year.
Molina’s absence also comes as the board itself has experienced internal turmoil, some of which boiled over into the public on Tuesday. Clashes between the board’s more criminal justice minded members and the members appointed by Mayor Eric Adams – including the chairperson – have left some to wonder about the board’s ability to effectively conduct oversight of the troubled agency.
Missing Molina
It wasn’t clear Tuesday how far in advance the DOC had notified the board about their impending absence. Several members of the board appeared caught off guard when Sampson announced Molina wouldn’t be appearing before them.
Board member Bobby Cohen, who has clashed with Molina publicly on several occasions, suggested that the DOC’s absence was intentional.
“The last time the department did not come to the meeting, it was to demonstrate something,” Cohen said. “I'm not sure what it is trying to demonstrate today.”
The relationship between the board and the department has appeared to be particularly tense in recent months.
The BOC recently sued the corrections department after Molina revoked board members’ ability to access video surveillance footage from within Rikers Island remotely. In addition to the lawsuit, the policy change led to the resignation of Amanda Masters, the board’s former executive director, in February.
Several weeks ago, the DOC agreed to settle in the case and restore the board’s access to remote video. The BOC was set to vote – in an executive session – on whether or not to accept the settlement agreement at Tuesday’s meeting.
Beyond the board’s vote on the agreement, the board was set to discuss a number of ongoing issues within the city’s jails at Tuesday’s meeting, all of which were put on ice as a result of Molina and the DOC’s absence.
On the agenda was; the implementation of the Risk Management Accountability System, an alternative to solitary confinement that was supposed to be implemented in 2021 but has been delayed as a result of alleged DOC staffing issues; a discussion about the executive order that has been extended every week since September 2021 and that suspends a number of the board’s minimum standards citing the ongoing crisis in the jails; an update from the DOC on its continued use of controversial restraint desks; and an update on social programming in Rikers Island after the DOC terminated contracts with half a dozen nonprofits that offered reentry and other services to detainees.
But without DOC officials in attendance, discussion of the items was pushed to a meeting in the future.
Tensions boil within BOC
Without the DOC in attendance, a number of long simmering issues between members of the board came to the surface on Tuesday.
At the start of the meeting, Sampson, who does not have any previous correctional experience, said that he was disappointed that the BOC had not been able to expand the hours it has staff observing conditions in the jail.
“I have had notable discussions for months and to this day we still do not have expanded hours,” Sampson said.
In response, a number of board members asked Sampson if he had lobbied City Hall for additional funding or staff in order to increase the hours the board has eyes in the jails. Sampson said that instead, the board should change the hours its staff works, instead of bringing on new staff.
“Expanded hours does not mean that you have to have an additional budget at this time,” Sampson said.
Sampson’s response to the question prompted a back and forth that went on for several minutes.
At one point, BOC Executive Director Jasmine Georges-Yilla, who was recently appointed after Sampson attempted – but failed – to unilaterally promote his chosen candidate to the role, told the chairperson that members of the board had months ago told Sampson that there were a number of issues with moving around board staffs’ schedules, including union rules, budgetary restrictions and “good practices.”
“We've explained it to you since you raised the issue with us and at this point, we are happy to explore it and continue exploring it,” Georges-Yilla said. “But we urge you and request that you ask the administration to expand our budget so that we could create resources to be able to do this.”
The public disagreement was only the latest evidence of a troubled relationship between Sampson and a majority of the board’s members and its executive director.
Sampson was absent from last month’s meeting, telling the board’s members around half an hour before the scheduled start time that he would not be in attendance. The September meeting was the first since the BOC had sued the DOC over the video surveillance footage access, and the first since five of the BOC’s members in an op-ed called on federal Judge Laura Swain to appoint a federal receiver, a position Sampson has yet to take.
The five board members – DeAnna Hoskins, Rachel Bedard, Jacqueline Sherman, Felipe Franco and Cohen – are often more critical of the DOC than Sampson and board members Joseph Ramos and Jacqueline Pitts, all three of whom were appointed by Adams.
Ramos and Pitts were also absent from the September meeting.
The BOC’s next meeting will be held on Nov. 14.
