Some Rikers detainees haven’t gotten outdoor rec in over a year, oversight board finds
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Some detainees being held on Rikers Island haven’t been let outside for recreational time in over a year, according to the city’s Board of Correction. AP file photo by Seth Wenig
By Jacob Kaye
Some detainees on Rikers Island haven’t been allowed outside for recreational time for over a year, according to officials with the jail’s independent watchdog board.
Though the Department of Correction has struggled to get detainees across Rikers Island outdoor recreation, detainees held inside the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island have not stepped outside for rec in over a year, the city’s Board of Correction said during an oversight hearing on Wednesday.
The prolonged absence of outdoor recreation has likely affected over 1,000 detainees. As of Tuesday, Feb. 27, there were over 1,320 people being held inside EMTC, the building with the second-largest population on Rikers Island. The building’s detainee population accounts for over a fifth of Rikers’ total population.
But it’s not just those at EMTC who have had issues getting outside – across Rikers Island, detainees have inconsistently been given recreation time, sometimes going weeks without getting outside.
The lack of recreation time for detainees appears to be in violation of the BOC’s minimum standards, which are a set of guidelines that aim to ensure the safe and humane housing of those being held in the city’s jails.
The BOC’s minimum standards state that “people in custody shall be provided with adequate indoor and outdoor recreational opportunities,” and that “recreation periods shall be at least one hour.” Outdoor recreation is supposed to be available to detainees seven days per week, according to the BOC’s minimum standards.
Not having access to outdoor recreational time – or recreational time in general – can often have a detrimental effect on safety inside a jail complex, advocates say.
“Being in jail, in the first place, is inherently traumatic and not having access to recreation exacerbates that,” Darren Mack, the co-director of Freedom Agenda who himself was formerly incarcerated, told the Eagle during an interview on Wednesday.
According to top officials with the Department of Correction, including Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, who appeared before the BOC on Wednesday, it’s not just one single obstacle that has prevented the troubled agency from getting detainees their required recreation time.
Some Rikers Island facilities, including EMTC, currently lack the space to allow for outdoor recreation. Also, DOC officials claim that ongoing staffing issues have made it difficult to assign staff to oversee detainees outdoors.
Additionally getting in the way of outdoor recreation is the fact that the agency has poorly planned some detainees’ schedules, sometimes scheduling activities like law library visits, religious services or visits from family or friends for the same time the detainee is scheduled to get outside.
From Dec. 1, 2023 to Jann. 22, 2024, the BOC found a total of 82 grievances submitted to the DOC regarding a lack of recreation.
“A consistent concern expressed by people in custody is that there's inconsistent access to daily recreation as required by the board's minimum standards,” BOC Executive Director Jasmine Georges-Yilla said on Wednesday.
Though top leadership with the DOC attempted to answer a number of the BOC’s questions about the lack of recreation, Maginley-Liddie, who was appearing for the board as commissioner for the second time since her appointment in December, didn’t speak much about the topic, despite its inclusion on the meeting agenda circulated weeks ago.
Maginely-Liddie, who received praise from a number of board members on Wednesday for her recent efforts to work more collaboratively with oversight agencies and for running a generally more transparent agency than her predecessor, Louis Molina, commented on the DOC’s efforts to open a previously shuttered mental health ward for women detainees at Elmhurst Hospital and her efforts to tour the jail complex herself.
Though she didn’t comment directly on the recreation issue, the commissioner said that she would commit the agency to work harder to meet the BOC’s minimum standards.
“We know that among the best paths to violence reduction is ensuring that minimum standards are met,” Maginley-Liddie said. “It is incumbent on department leadership to monitor the provisions of those services firsthand and to speak up when our commitment to our population and our staff is not met.”
“I believe a constructive partnership between the department and the board is critical to providing better services to our population, as well as a better environment for our staff,” she added.
BOC board member Robert Cohen, who often clashed with the former commissioner, asked DOC officials specifically about the lack of recreation at EMTC.
Officials said that the facility lacked the space for outdoor recreation and that the agency was in the process of building a new yard for the detainees at EMTC to use. According to Deputy Commissioner Patrick Benn, a contractor recently submitted plans to the city’s comptroller’s office to build the yard – a review of the contract is expected to take around 30 days.
But even with a new yard at the facility, DOC officials said Wednesday that other barriers are preventing them from offering recreational time to detainees on a regular basis.
“We have challenges to the provision of rec and we acknowledge that here today,” said Nancy Savasta, the acting general counsel for the DOC.
Savasta and other DOC officials made note of the agency's staffing difficulties and facilities issues in explaining their poor record on recreation.
Savasta also claimed that finding the space to provide recreation outdoors was getting more difficult as a result of the plan to close Rikers Island, which requires the DOC to transfer unused land and facilities to the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services every six months until the mandatory closure date of August 2027. However, the DOC has only made two such transfers in the past three years. Not a single transfer has occurred under Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, which has missed four such deadlines, including one as recently as December 2023.
Mack, who spoke with the Eagle after the conclusion of the BOC meeting, said that he doesn’t agree with the DOC’s assessment of their failure to provide recreational time consistently.
“It's not a staffing crisis problem, it's a management of staffing problem,” Mack said. “I think they are overreaching when it comes to some of their excuses regarding staffing issues, or even structural issues.”
“If this administration is going to follow not only their legal obligation but the moral obligation to close Rikers then there is no excuse why people shouldn’t be getting the basic, minimum standards,” he added.
