New leader of Fortune Society talks Rikers, receivership and criminal justice in NY
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Stanley Richards is the president and CEO of The Fortune Society. Photo via The Fortune Society
By Jacob Kaye
Stanley Richards has a unique perspective on the city’s criminal justice system.
He’s been incarcerated, he’s worked alongside Department of Correction brass and he’s spent decades at a nonprofit that provides reentry services and alternatives to incarceration.
Now, Richards is leading that organization, The Fortune Society, one of the city’s most prevalent criminal justice nonprofits. He recently became Fortune’s CEO and president, succeeding the organization's longtime leader JoAnne Page.
It’s largely a role that Richards, who has spent the majority of his career at The Fortune Society, has been expected to take for years.
After briefly leaving Fortune to serve as the deputy commissioner of programs and operations at the Department of Correction for a year – he was the first formerly incarcerated person to hold a deputy commissioner position at the department – he returned to the organization as its first-ever deputy chief executive officer in 2022. He officially began leading the Queens-based organization at the start of January.
As one of his first acts as president and CEO of Fortune, Richards recently released the organization’s legislative agenda for the coming year.
At the top of the organization’s list is advocating for the legally-mandated closure of Rikers Island, which Richards has been tasked to help the city achieve as a member of recently reformed Independent Commission on Rikers. The organization will also this year advocate for a pair of bills in Albany that would reform the state’s parole process, a bill that would eliminate mandatory minimum sentences, legislation that would establish a statewide rental subsidy program for low-income people facing eviction and a bill to expand access to judicial diversions for people with mental health issues.
“Our ultimate goal is to really be able to put ourselves out of work because we no longer need it, because we live in a truly fair and just system,” Richards said.
Richards recently sat down with the Eagle to discuss the organization’s legislative agenda, as well as his goals as Fortune’s president. Richards also shared his thoughts on the troubled jail complex on Rikers Island, its uncertain future and the Department of Correction’s new commissioner, who he formerly served alongside.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Eagle: It’s been a little over half a month since you took over as CEO of The Fortune Society. It’s a role you’ve largely been preparing for for years but how has the transition into the role been?
Richards: I am extremely excited. I think there's excitement in the organization about my appointment and I think there's a shift in the field overall when it comes to people with lived experiences and BIPOC people taking on leadership roles of nonprofits. For me, this is a very exciting time. I've been part of Fortune for over 30 years, so, I've seen the growth and I understand our strengths. JoAnne stewarded this organization for 34 years, I was a partner in many of those years and so I want to build on that. This isn't an opportunity for me to start new, I'm starting from a really solid foundation.
How are you approaching your first year in the role?
My number one priority is really focusing on people-first leadership. That involves supporting our staff to create pathways for staff that are transparent, that lift up the amazing work that they do every single day and making sure that we keep an eye on two things – providing the tools and resources they need to work with our clients, and to really be able to have staff focus on their wellness.
The second pillar is building on excellence in terms of services. We've built out services in 12 domains. Those services have been built out very organically as we've been listening to the needs of the people we serve. As new needs emerge, we want to be responsive to that. But we have a core set of services that we know help with the stability of people impacted by the criminal legal system – housing, employment and training, substance use treatment, mental health treatment, alternatives to incarceration and diversion, family reunification, education. We want to keep building on that and being able to share those best practices with the field, so as a field, we really work in harmony to try to change the trajectory of so many people who are caught up in the system.
The third piece is to continue to do advocacy. We see 11,000 people a year. Those people have stories and experiences that if we listen, we could use and leverage to try to change the policies that keep people caught up in the system. We recently put out our 2024 legislative priorities and many of those priorities are ongoing conversations. We know we can get our elected officials to address some of those things and we can begin to chip away at not only providing a safety net, but chip away at the very system that generates this lifetime of collateral consequences.
The fourth piece is opening up our work to a broader community. We know that there are people out there who really care about what happens in our criminal legal system. They want to make a difference, they want to figure out how they can make a difference, whatever their gifts and talents. We want to provide people with that opportunity and to invite them in with us, to partner with us to make that happen.
Those are the four pillars that we're going to be building out over the next couple of years, to really continue to reduce mass incarceration, reduce the traumatic experiences people face when they are incarcerated and reduce the barriers that disproportionately impact Black and brown people, and Black and brown communities.
You have quite a unique perspective having been incarcerated, a top official at the Department of Correction and having spent decades providing services to those impacted by incarceration. How do you marry those three experiences in your work?
When I went to DOC, many people said, “How are you going to manage that?” And my response to that was, “I'm going to walk in a way that I’ve always walked in my life.” That started when I came home and dedicated my life to giving back. You start with people first and you center all your work around the people. As deputy commissioner of programs and operations, I didn't just see incarcerated people, I saw officers, I saw civilians who worked for the department, the families who would come to visit. When you look at the collective, the work that we did in DOC, and the work that we're doing here at Fortune, is about all those people. The same can be said of our pursuit to close Rikers Island. It's not just about incarcerated people. It's about officers. That facility is harmful to everybody.
I brought my lived experience to that role and I'm taking my experience at DOC in this work. So, when you hear me advocating for closing Rikers, and having a smaller footprint, and having the borough-based jails, I'm thinking about all of those people that interact with that system. We need to make it better for them. Our communities deserve it, the people who are incarcerated and their families deserve it and so do the people who work there.
Most of the legislation included on Fortune Society’s legislative agenda has been introduced every year for the past several years. It seems as though in recent years, however, that Albany has passed only one major criminal justice reform per year, despite broad support for a number of causes. Is there a bill on your agenda that you feel has the best shot at getting passed into law this year?
Many of the bills that we are supporting have been on the agenda for some time. I think the challenge we face as a country, particularly here in New York City and New York State, is that we have to understand that there is no one bill or no single legislative action that will dismantle and unpack a system that has been operating for hundreds and hundreds of years. The way we're approaching it is, we need to look at everything that's on the table. We understand some things are going to pass it, some things aren't. But we're going to continue to be the voice that elevates the work that we need to do.
We know that this governor cares about criminal justice. We are so thankful that we got Clean Slate passed. I'm going to benefit from Clean Slate – somebody who's been doing this work for 32 years, and is the president and CEO of Fortune will benefit from Clean Slate. We know that our partners care about fairness and want to do the right thing. We're here to keep elevating the voices of those impacted by those policies so that we can change them.
We’re in a major election year. Is there any concern that the state’s Democrats become wary of passing any major criminal justice reforms out of fear that it could hurt them at the polls?
There is a different opportunity and calculus that our political leaders need to make, but for us, we're not standing on the political climate for these policy changes, we're standing on the policy itself. We understand firsthand that those policies disproportionately impact Black and brown people, and so no matter what the political climate is, what the political timing is, we're going to stand on those truths. We hope our legislative partners do and speak to the truth and to the reality of these policies, and get away from the fear mongering.
At the top of your legislative agenda is the closure of Rikers Island as a jail complex, which the city is legally mandated to achieve by the summer of 2027. The city appears to be wildly off pace with its timeline to close the jail. Recently, the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams reformed the Independent Rikers Commission, otherwise known as the Lippman Commission, and made you a member. Speaking for yourself and not the commission, can the city safely close Rikers by 2027?
I think part of our work on the commission is really reassessing the landscape and the elements that will get us to close Rikers and build borough based jails. The city is obligated right now to close Rikers by 2027. I know that this city, when it invests, commits and is clear eyed about doing something, we can do it. Part of our work now is providing a roadmap, taking into consideration all of the changing elements – the costs of the original jail procurement, construction, design, training, the rising population on Rikers – and provide the city with a roadmap for closing Rikers Island.
We all want Rikers Island to have been closed yesterday, because we see the ongoing harm to officers, to people incarcerated there and their families. We have two deaths already in 2024. We need it to stop, we can stop it and we can do better. We have to close Rikers.
What are the top three actions the city can take right now to get back on track with its plan to close Rikers by 2027?
The Lippman Commission’s original recommendations are still available. Divert as many people as you can divert safely into community-based organizations using the existing alternative to incarceration diversion. Expedite the building out of the hospital beds for people suffering from mental illness. Expedite court processing to ensure the length of time it takes to get a case adjudicated is going down, and people are being processed.
Those are things that the city, in partnership with nonprofits and stakeholders in those systems, could be doing.
One of the main things we need to do is make sure that the number of people we’re seeing on Rikers Island goes down and not up. I think if you continue to pull on those three levers, we could begin to chip away at the census. We don't need to wait for the borough-based jails to be built, we don't need to wait until 2027 – we can be taking those actions right now.
Nearly every effort to shutter Rikers has come to a halt under the Adams administration. However, following the reappointment of the Lippman Commission, some criminal justice advocates and lawmakers saw the move as a signal that the mayor’s position on closing Rikers had changed for whatever reason. Similar optimism was expressed when he brought on Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie. Do you feel the administration’s posture toward Rikers’ closure has changed at all in recent weeks?
I couldn't speak to his intent or what he really wants to do, but I can speak to the hope I have that is that we are standing on the side of truth and justice. We have a system right now that does not treat people fairly. When you look at the length of stay people are staying incarcerated, when you look at the conditions people are subjected to when they are incarcerated, when you look at the conditions people are subjected to at work, we know we are on the side of truth and justice.
We are thankful that the mayor has signed off and is in line with the Lippman Commission 2.0 and that we have a moment right now where we can work with our city partners and our elected officials to do something that will be generational in terms of impact.
I hope that means that every city resource available to the mayor will be available to us to make sure we close Rikers, build the borough-based jails and have a much smaller footprint. I'm hopeful about that.
You worked closely with now-Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie when you were with the DOC. What’s your assessment of her work leading the agency so far?
I think she's a servant leader. I see her initial responses to some of the tragedies that have been happening and that speaks to who I think Lynelle is. After both detainee deaths, she notified the monitor, notified oversight agencies, immediately conducted investigations and notified the press. She’s being very transparent and I think that's who she is.
But I want to be really clear – closing Rikers is not about Lynelle’s success or failure as commissioner. I think she's going to make a wonderful commissioner but Rikers is bigger than any one commissioner. That's one lesson that I learned while I was there and that's why we need to close it.
As the city is attempting to close Rikers, it’s also facing the prospect of having its jail complex taken over by a federal receiver. Where does The Fortune Society stand on receivership, which the mayor and DOC opposes but a growing number of lawmakers and advocates support.
Receivership is an important tool that, if structured correctly, could move the needle. What receivership isn't is the be, all fix all. Like I said, there is not one bill that will fix the decades and decades and decades of a system that disproportionately impacts Black and brown people. It’s the same with receivership.
But receivership is an important tool to move the needle and that’s where we are right now. The judge is considering it, motions have been put forth, and if structured correctly, it can move the needle on some of the most entrenched bureaucratic barriers that prevent the kind of cultural changes that need to happen at DOC.
Am I in supportive receivership? Yes, but I'm also very clear that it won't fix everything. We ought to go into this receivership conversation with our eyes wide open. It is a tool in the toolbox that will allow us to move a critical inch in transforming New York City's jail system.
