Public advocate and comptroller call for federal receivership after Rikers tour
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Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Comptroller Brad Lander called for federal receivership after visiting Rikers Island on June 7, 2023. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
Two top city officials took a trip to Rikers Island on Wednesday following a troubling month in the jail complex. And while they said conditions there were far less chaotic than they have been in recent years, they still feel a judge should strip control of Rikers Island away from the city.
Amid a tumultuous month on Rikers, which included two detainee deaths, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander visited three facilities on the island and spoke with detainees, staff and a number of people who provide social services to those incarcerated there, they said.
Williams and Lander, both of whom have been critical of Mayor Eric Adams administration’s management of the jail, said that compared to previous visits they made in recent years, Wednesday’s walk through was far more calm. But issues remain.
As such, Lander renewed his call for a federal judge to install a federal receivership over the island during a press conference following the tour. A receivership, which can only be ordered by a judge, could take different forms – it could mean control over Rikers is fully handed over to an appointed authority or it could mean day-to-day control over Rikers is co-managed by the DOC and an appointed authority.
Williams, who just this week announced that he was in support of a receivership, said that he planed to introduce a resolution in the City Council on Thursday aimed at uniting the city’s legislature in its call for the temporary end of Department of Correction management over Rikers Island.
“What we really want to see is a plan that makes everyone safer on the island – the people who are detained there, the people who work there, who are often from the same community,” Williams said. “I have not seen that.”
Though there appeared to be a number of reasons that would warrant a tour of Rikers Island on Wednesday – which also marked the death of Layleen Polanco – the public advocate and comptroller said their desire to observe the current conditions in the jail complex varied from one another.
For Lander, whose office recently launched a dashboard that tracks key statistics about the city’s jails using data provided by the Department of Correction, it was a series of moves by the DOC to limit the amount of information shared with the public and oversight bodies.
Earlier this year, the DOC revoked the ability of members of the Board of Correction, the DOC’s oversight body, to view video surveillance footage inside Rikers Island remotely. Though BOC members are still allowed to view the footage, they have to do so in-person. The policy change frustrated the former executive director of the BOC, Amanda Masters, to the point in which she resigned.
Several weeks ago, Steve J. Martin, federal monitor appointed to oversee conditions on Rikers Island in 2015, issued a report in which he accused top officials at the DOC of failing to log and report five serious incidents, two of which were fatal. At one point in the report, Martin said DOC Commissioner Louis Molina attempted to suppress information about several of the incidents during conversations with the monitoring team.
Also, the DOC’s new chief spokesperson announced that the agency would no longer alert members of the press or the public when a person in their custody dies. The change in policy was announced just after the DOC saw its third detainee death of the year.
“That is just basic information that needs to be provided,” Lander said on Monday of the in custody death notifications.
“If we can’t have confidence that the department is going to provide clear and transparent information, then we will need to come in for visits more often,” the comptroller added.
Williams said that his reason for visiting extended upon the agency’s reported lack of transparency.
In addition to the detainee deaths, monitor’s report and DOC policy changes that he disagrees with, Williams said that issues within the BOC also inspired his trip to the Queens island.
Since his appointment earlier this year by the mayor, BOC Chair Dwayne Sampson has clashed with members of the board who tend to align themselves with criminal justice advocates.
Last month, one board member told him during a public meeting that Sampson didn’t understand the position of board chair, despite having the job.
Earlier this week, five of the board’s nine members called an emergency meeting after it was revealed that Sampson had planned to “unilaterally” install a new executive director to the oversight body. During the emergency meeting, which Sampson and two other board members aligned with the chairperson did not attend, the board members re-installed acting executive director Jasmine Georges-Yilla and passed an agenda item that created a search committee to find a permanent executive director.
Williams said on Wednesday that the turmoil within the oversight body has brought him concern.
“What is happening on the board of corrections is problematic,” the public advocate said.
Though Lander began calling for a federal receivership in October, Williams’ support of the judicial order is new.
He said that he’s been reluctant to call for the judicial intervention because he worries that whatever authority would be put in charge of the jail may not bring in the voices of the advocates and providers who offer services in Rikers into the fold
“I have been clear but I also have concerns about federal receivership,” Williams said. “I don't know that it's a panacea, but right now, we have a problem on Rikers Island.”
“It is dangerous, literally deadly for people on the island, and is unsafe and unsustainable – it has been for a while,” he added.
His resolution could have support from City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who has yet to call for a receivership by name but said in a statement last week that she hopes federal Judge Laura Swain, who is overseeing the civil rights case that resulted in the creation of the monitor, “seriously consider the strongest interventions necessary” in regard to conditions on the island.
Speaker Adams, whose mother served as a correctional officer, has criticized the mayor for his lack of commitment to closing Rikers by 2027, the city’s legally mandated deadline for closing the jail complex.
Not in support of receivership is Molina, the mayor and the Correctional Officers Benevolent Association, whose leadership argued with Williams and Lander at the foot of the Rikers Island bridge on Wednesday.
Benny Boscio, the union’s president, said that he’s opposed to receivership because he believes Molina and the city have the ability to turn the jail around themselves.
“It's not going to make our problems go away,” Boscio said. “And the reality is that the commissioner that's in place now has made improvements, so all we're going to do is go backwards.”
In a statement to the Eagle, the mayor reiterated his belief that a receivership isn’t necessary and defended his commissioner.
"Commissioner Molina and I are committed to fixing the city’s jails and making them as safe and humane as possible,” Adams said. “Since taking office, we have been working diligently to turn the Department of Corrections around, reducing violence, bringing officers back to work, and working with all our partners to improve conditions.”
“There has been a lot of progress as Comptroller Lander and Public Advocate Williams have acknowledged, and a federal receiver will not magically fix decades of dysfunction and mismanagement,” he added.
