Jail oversight board bungles monthly meeting – again
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Board of Correction chairperson Dwayne Sampson struggled to run the board’s monthly meeting on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. Screenshot via BOC
By Jacob Kaye
The city’s jail oversight board’s monthly meeting fell into chaos Tuesday afternoon after technical difficulties left the board’s livestream sputtering, and after the board’s chair clashed with a criminal justice reform advocate agitated by the board’s inability to hold its scheduled public hearing.
For over an hour, the chairperson of the Board of Correction, Dwayne Sampson, struggled to bring the meeting to order, arguing not only with members of the public but also with his fellow board members.
After refusing to allow board members to vote to bring the meeting into a private executive session, he eventually allowed the public portion of the meeting, which had not even begun, to come to a close.
Following the executive session, the BOC issued no communication as to when the postponed meeting will be held.
The board did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Eagle on Tuesday afternoon.
It was the second of the board’s last three meetings to be delayed by technical difficulties and the third meeting in the past four months to be canceled.
Shortly after the Board of Correction’s meeting began on Tuesday, its livestream began to falter. Both audio and video of the meeting, which was broadcast on its website, came in and out for several minutes before Sampson, who was recently appointed to serve as the board’s chair by Mayor Eric Adams, brought the meeting to a pause.
After a 10 minute delay, Sampson put forth a motion to adjourn the meeting, which was quickly rejected by the board’s other eight members. Nonetheless, that’s when members of the Department of Correction, who had come to testify at the meeting, walked out of the room. The meeting was still in session.
At that time, Chaplain Dr. Victoria A. Phillips, a longtime criminal justice reform advocate who has held various positions working with people incarcerated on Rikers Island, began to reprimanded Sampson for his suggestion that the meeting be postponed.
“I took it upon myself to say, ‘Well, the last time it was postponed, there was no follow up – so, are you going to actually follow up with the public in real time?’” Phillips, a frequent presence at BOC meetings, told the Eagle on Tuesday afternoon. “That aggravated him, he ignored me, so I repeated myself. That's when it really took off with him being annoyed with me.”
With the livestream up and running, Sampson ordered an officer to take Phillips out of the room, calling her a security threat.
An officer allegedly grabbed Phillips’ phone away from her before tugging at her arm in an attempt to lead her out of the room, she said. A number of criminal justice reform advocates in the room then gathered around her and the officer backed off, she said.
Though the livestream was again functioning, with the DOC officials gone and Sampson’s insistence that Phillips leave, the meeting came to a standstill.
During the pause, Phillips began to cry.
“I was so frustrated,” she said. “I'm tired. Thirteen years of being on the record, publicly speaking out about the conditions on Rikers. I don't do this for show. I do this because I work there, I've seen the atrocities and the inhumane barbaric injustices that occur there.
“Every administration says they want to do better, they want to learn from us, they want a better environment, to change the culture of abuse – and they do nothing,” she added. “And I'm tired of the horse and pony show. I'm tired of the sham.”
Chaplain Dr. Victoria A. Phillips clashed with BOC chair Dwayne Sampson on Tuesday during the board’s monthly meeting. Screenshot via BOC
Multiple members of the board suggested they go into executive session – a move that would have allowed the board to reallocate the meeting to a room away from the public attendees – but Sampson refused.
“We are waiting for a security issue to be resolved before we resume this meeting,” Sampson told board member Felipe Franco, who had put forth the motion to go into executive session.
“This matter has to be resolved and then I will hear your motion,” Sampson added.
Several members of the board then questioned Sampson’s understanding of the board’s rules and procedures.
“We need to understand the operations of the board,” said board member Deanna Hoskins. “That situation does not threaten the business of this board.”
After Sampson again rejected the motion to move into executive session, Hoskins said that Sampson didn’t understand the “position of the chair.”
“We don’t need your permission,” she said. “As a chair, you’re just a chair of the board, the board majority votes. You don’t have control over the majority vote of the board.”
After a half hour standoff, Sampson relented and allowed the BOC to move into executive session.
The BOC is an independent oversight body, charged with monitoring conditions in New York City’s correctional facilities.
Though its relationship with the Department of Correction has fluctuated over the years, it has clashed with current DOC Commissioner Louis Molina in recent months. Amanda Masters, resigned as the board’s executive director in February, citing actions Molina had taken to restrict the BOC’s access to live video from Rikers Island.
“I hope the Department will change course — soon — and allow unfettered access to images and video again,” Masters said in a resignation letter to BOC staff. “This period has been very unfortunate.”
Advocates, including Phillips, have said that Sampson’s reign over the oversight body has been ineffective and say that he’s been unwilling to clash with department leaders.
“He doesn’t know how to hold DOC accountable,” Phillips said. “He’s just happy to be there, but we don't need people that are happy to be on the board, let alone be the chair.”
“We need people that are going to hold the DOC accountable in real time and protect every New Yorker behind those walls, whether it's staff or the detained,” she added.
In the weeks since the BOC held its last hearing, the federal monitor appointed to oversee conditions on Rikers Island issued several reports on the jail complex. In those reports, he noted record levels of use of force incidents perpetrated by correctional officers that resulted in serious injuries for detainees. The reports also highlight a lack of discipline for officers accused of abusing their authority.
Those reports were absent from the board’s scheduled agenda on Tuesday.
“It seems that the new chair has the idea that his objective is to prevent the department from being portrayed in any negative way, which is not at all his job,” said Sarita Daftary, the co-executive director of Freedom Agenda.
“His job is oversight,” Daftary added. “Oversight involves things that are not going well and trying to figure out what the board is going to do about them, and pushing the city to take action to rectify them.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Dwayne Sampson replaced Amanda Masters as the chairperson of the Board of Corrections in February. Masters was not the chairperson, she was the board’s executive director.
