Monitor says Rikers remains dangerous as judge mulls federal takeover
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The federal monitor appointed to track conditions on Rikers Island said in his latest report that “the risk of harm in [Rikers Island] remains very high.” AP file photo by Seth Wenig
By Jacob Kaye
As a potential federal takeover of Rikers Island looms over the city, a court-appointed monitor said in a highly anticipated report that violence and dysfunction has continued to plague the jail complex and the agency that runs it over much of the past year.
In a report filed in federal court late Friday, Steve J. Martin, the monitor appointed to track the Department of Correction’s compliance with a consent judgment in the wide-ranging detainee civil rights case known as Nunez v. the City of New York, said that “the risk of harm in [Rikers Island] remains very high” and that the DOC “remains mired in dysfunction.”
While the monitor fell short of calling for federal Judge Laura Swain to strip control of Rikers away from the city and put what’s known as a “federal receiver” in charge of it, he said that “the pace of the reform is nowhere near what the urgency of the situation demands.”
Detainee-on-detainee violence remains troubling, Martin said, as does the number and severity of use of force incidents perpetrated by correctional officers against detainees, the very issue that lay at the heart of the original court order.
“Throughout the nine-year history since the consent judgment went into effect, the Nunez reforms have simply not been implemented or institutionalized in a manner to materially, and in a sustained fashion, reduce unacceptable levels of harm to both detainees and staff,” Martin wrote.
“While advances have been made within discrete areas of the [DOC’s] operation, the foundational elements of reliable security practices that are directly related to staff use of force and alarming levels of interpersonal violence among the detainee population remain elusive as does the accountability of staff at all levels for these failures,” he added.
The report from Martin, which marks his first major assessment of conditions on Rikers Island under the leadership of DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, may help answer some crucial questions surrounding the ongoing detainee rights case.
In September, Swain heard arguments from federal prosecutors and the Legal Aid Society, which represents the plaintiffs in the case, about why they believed the city should be held in contempt of the 2015 consent judgment, which now includes around 30 individual court orders.
The public defense firm pointed to the elevated use of force incidents on Rikers, which, by a number of metrics, have been more prevalent in recent years than they were in the years prior to the creation of the consent judgment. The Legal Aid Society also said they believed the DOC had failed time and again to make corrections to its staffing practices, jail management and safety measures, among other orders from the court.
While the city’s attorneys acknowledged some indicators of increased violence, they also argued that Maginley-Liddie, who was appointed to the top post in December 2023, should be given more time to make meaningful reforms to the troubled agency and the notorious jail it runs.
But Swain didn’t appear to buy the argument, saying from the bench that the “carousel” of rotating leadership atop the Department of Correction and New York City government had prevented any real improvements from taking root on Rikers, despite a slurry of recommendations from Martin, promises of change from city leadership and orders from the judge herself.
“I see a clear and unavoidable need for new measures,” Swain said in September.
At the end of the hearing, Swain ordered the city to meet with prosecutors and the Legal Aid Society to put together the plan for a federal receiver, in the case that the judge should order one.
While Mayor Eric Adams, Maginley-Liddie, the correctional officers union and others have fiercely opposed receivership, they have been forced to reckon with the possibility that one might, in some capacity, be put in charge of the jail. The Legal Aid Society has argued that a receiver, whose powers would be determined by Swain, should take the place and powers of the DOC commissioner for whatever length of time they’d be appointed for. Under the Legal Aid Society’s proposal, the commissioner would be expected to “work closely with the receiver to facilitate the receiver’s ability to perform their duties.”
But Swain said she wouldn’t make a decision on receivership until she first decided whether or not the city is in contempt of the consent judgment in the case. And she said she wouldn’t make that decision until Martin issued his findings, which he did in the Friday report.
While Martin didn’t himself make a judgement about the city’s overall compliance with the consent decree, he gave the city a rating on each of the individual elements of the judgment, a common practice in the biannual reports.
Martin said that the city was non-compliant with eight of the 31 court orders in the case, including a crucial order regarding use of force.
The monitor found the city to be in partial compliance with 17 orders and in substantial compliance with six orders.
The monitor had a number of positive things to say about Maginley-Liddie’s leadership of the jails, which he said was a stark contrast to the leadership of the agency's former commissioner, Louis Molina, who reportedly withheld information from Martin about the agency’s work and several incidents that resulted in the deaths of detainees.
But even after noting that “some signs of progress exist,” Martin said that “the pace of the reform is nowhere near what the urgency of the situation demands.”
“Many of the department’s current actions comprise only basic steps and yet are essential building blocks,” he said in the report. “Each element must be expanded, deepened and amplified in order to begin to ameliorate the dangerous conditions in the jails.”
With Martin’s report now on the case’s docket, Swain is expected to issue a ruling on whether or not the city is in contempt in December.
In a statement to the Eagle, a spokesperson for the Legal Aid Society said that while they were “still reviewing the report,” they could “say that the monitor's latest findings serve as yet another example of DOC's utter inability to manage the local jail system effectively.”
“Only an outside actor, such as a receiver, can deliver on the wholesale reforms needed to meaningfully improve the deplorable conditions that have plagued Rikers Island for far too long," the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for the DOC said the agency was “pleased with the findings that demonstrate the city’s commitment to improving the safety of everyone in our jails,” citing Martin’s assessment that Maginley-Liddie has provided “solid and steady leadership” while appointing a “well-qualified leadership team,” and proving the DOC’s “ability to remove certain obstacles to reform.”
Update: This story was updated with comment from the Department of Correction at 9:46 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024.
