Council to introduce Rikers transparency bills
/
City Councilmember and chair of the council’s Committee on Criminal Justice Carlina Rivera plans to introduce a bill Thursday that would require the Department of Correction to turn over a number of records to the Board of Correction. File photo by Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit
By Jacob Kaye
After having been accused by judges, advocates, lawmakers, oversight agencies, attorneys and others of failing to be transparent about what happens on Rikers Island, the Department of Correction may be legally required to open its records, video recordings and more to an oversight board should two bills set to be introduced in the City Council on Thursday pass into law.
The two bills set to be introduced in the city’s legislative body this week both revolve around codifying the powers of the Board of Correction, the civilian oversight body charged with keeping tabs on the Department of Correction and the city’s jails.
City Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who chairs the council’s Committee on Criminal Justice, is expected to introduce a bill that would grant the Board of Correction unfettered access to DOC records, documents, logs and other papers or digital files.
City Councilmember Keith Powers, who formerly chaired the Committee on Criminal Justice, will introduce a similar piece of legislation – the bill will require the BOC be given access to camera footage captured by body-worn cameras attached to correction officers’ uniforms.
The two bills come just days after the DOC agreed to again allow BOC members and staff to view surveillance footage from Rikers Island remotely. The BOC sued the department to regain access to the video footage after DOC Commissioner Louis Molina reversed the long-standing policy in January, requiring that board members and staff appear in person to view the footage.
The bills also come after months of accusations that the Adams administration and leadership at the DOC have been averse to oversight and have not been transparent about a number of serious incidents, including two that resulted in detainee deaths.
“The council has to provide guardrails and implement laws that specifically prevent this Department of Correction and this administration from concealing any information that can be used to hold them accountable to their duty to care for those in its custody,” Rivera told the Eagle.
The city councilmember said that the intention behind the bills is simple – to shore up any confusion around the BOC’s oversight power.
“I think clarifying the BOC’s authority in the charter through legislation is critical in ensuring that this [video] access is not revoked again on a whim,” Rivera said.
In January, Molina announced that should BOC members and staff wish to view surveillance footage they’d have to do so in person on Rikers Island, the jail where over two dozen people have died dating back to the start of the Adams administration in January 2022.
Molina claimed that he revoked the board’s remote video access because videos from inside the jail complex – including videos of incidents that were under investigation at the time – were shared with members of the media by members of the BOC.
The policy change immediately caused tension between the board and the commissioner, and was one of several incidents that BOC has pointed to when accusing Molina and the Adams administration of being hostile to oversight.
The revocation of the video access also led to the resignation of the board’s former executive director, Amanda Masters, earlier this year.
In her resignation letter, Masters specifically referenced the change in video policy.
“[Molina] has also acted to restrict and encumber staff access to information necessary to perform their work effectively and to discuss and illustrate their findings among themselves, with me, and with board members,” Masters said in the letter.
“I hope the department will change course — soon — and allow unfettered access to images and video again,” she added. “This period has been very unfortunate.”
Following several months of attempting to persuade the DOC to restore remote access to the videos – which the BOC uses to conduct oversight and investigations – the board filed a lawsuit against the agency, claiming that the change in policy “flies in the face of the express inspection rights granted to the Board under the New York City Charter.”
They also said in the suit that the limitation had a number of negative impacts on their ability to provide oversight to the agency that has seen eight people die in its custody this year.
“The negative impact that the restrictions have on the Board’s ability to perform its duties cannot be overstated: Video access, including access to a live feed, is one of the most crucial means by which the Board can effectively monitor the City’s jails; ensure DOC’s compliance with the minimum standards the Board has established; and conduct independent, confidential investigations into incidents of violence, use of force, responses to medical emergencies, and improper, potentially criminal, conduct by DOC staff, among other things,” the lawsuit read.
In response to the lawsuit, the Department of Correction denied that it had violated the city’s charter in making the change.
“The [lawsuit] is filled with hyperbolic claims that would lead one to believe that DOC has stripped the Board of its authority to inspect DOC video footage, when reality is that the Board’s requests to inspect are satisfied often within minutes,” an attorney for the DOC wrote in a court filing. “Because the Department has not infringed BOC’s right to inspect, this Court should not issue the requested injunction, and should dismiss this lawsuit.”
“As long as BOC claims the absolute right to disclose DOC video footage in response to FOIL requests when there are on-going investigations and the right…the reasonable limitations imposed on January 13, 2023, are sound and should not be disturbed,” they added.
But in their lawsuit, the oversight board claimed that the removal of remote video access was just one of several actions Molina had taken in the first year and a half of his tenure in office to elude oversight.
“Commissioner Molina’s arbitrary exercise of authority is of a piece with DOC’s pattern and practice of attempting at any cost to evade oversight, transparency, and accountability,” the suit read.
The BOC is not the only oversight body to accuse Molina of operating in an opaque manner.
Earlier this year, Steve Martin, the federal monitor appointed by a judge to track conditions in Rikers Island, claimed that Molina and DOC brass had failed to properly record and report five serious incidents involving detainees. Two of those incidents eventually proved to be fatal.
“This is not simply about a delay in providing information,” the monitor’s May report reads. “Along with the serious concerns about harm and the lack of safety that these incidents present, it is disturbing that the monitoring team, and consequently the court, would have been unaware that the incidents had occurred but for the allegations received from external stakeholders and/or media reports.”
“It is further unclear whether, absent the monitoring team’s inquiries, the department would have taken the necessary steps to investigate these incidents,” Martin added.
The lack of communication about the incidents ultimately led federal Judge Laura Swain to allow arguments to be made in favor of a federal receivership, or a judicial order that could result in the day-to-day management of Rikers Island being stripped from the DOC and being handed over to a court-appointed third party.
Rivera said that independent of the ongoing receivership battle, oversight over the DOC is a crucial first step in improving conditions in the jail.
“If we truly want proper oversight, if we want public accounting, there has to be as much transparency as possible,” Rivera said.
