Court officials say plan to reduce population on Rikers shows early signs of success
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A new plan from the court system to speed up cases in an effort to reduce the population on Rikers Island has shown early success, court officials claim. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
A pilot program from the state’s court system meant to reduce the ballooning population on Rikers Island has seen early successes, officials claim.
According to the Unified Court System, the plan to speed up cases in an effort to bring down the number of people detained pretrial in the city’s dangerous jail complex has seen promising results in Brooklyn, where the plan has been put to the test before it soon makes its way to other New York City boroughs.
Testifying before the City Council during a budget hearing last week, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the joint effort between judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys has “shown great success so far.”
“What we've seen during the implementation of this program is that we have been able…to resolve cases,” Gonzalez said. “We're starting to move cases a little more quickly, meaning that they're not being upheld and delayed.”
“It's shown a lot of promise,” he added.
The series of “case management innovations” was first introduced by court officials in October. It centered around the idea that district attorneys, judges and defense attorneys should make a more concerted effort to move along cases in which a defendant is being held in jail.
Since the start of the pandemic, when Rikers’ population hit a record low, more and more people have been filling up the jail, with hundreds stuck there waiting for their trial to begin for two or more years. The crowded jails have not only caused problems in the present, but spell trouble for the future of incarceration in New York City.
The court’s plan came after four years of continued growth of the population on Rikers Island, which the city is legally required to close in 2027. Despite city law mandating Rikers’ closure, a number of challenges that have cropped up over the past several years have made that deadline next to impossible. Topping the list of challenges is the jail’s population.
As of the first week of March, there were just shy of 7,000 detainees being held on Rikers Island, nearly 3,000 more detainees than there were at the start of the pandemic.
In order to move the jail’s population into the borough-based jails set to replace Rikers, the city will first have to reduce the number of people behind bars by around 3,000 people – the borough-based jails are being designed to hold a combined 4,400 detainees.
There’s also a persistent population of people who have been held for an unusually long amount of time waiting for their trial to begin. As of the first week of March, there were over 530 detainees who had been held on Rikers for two years or longer, according to DOC data.
While major questions remain unanswered about both the plan to close Rikers and the plan to open the new jails – the final borough-based jail is not expected to be completed until at least four years after the closure deadline – the court system launched the case management plan in the spirit of doing their part to lower the population in the jails and address the cases that have essentially come to standstill for years, officials said.
“While our administrative and trial judges are already working hard to monitor the oldest cases in their courthouses and address systemic causes of delay, I believe we can and must do more to address obstacles in resolving these serious cases,” Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas said in October. “Efficiently operating criminal courts are an essential component of our justice system, and we must not accept a status quo that routinely tolerates excessive delay.”
“The scheduled closing of the Rikers Island jails provides an added incentive to explore new strategies to ensure that serious criminal cases do not languish, while the accused waits in jail and victims and witnesses wait for resolution and closure,” he added.
The first part of the plan implemented in Brooklyn’s criminal courts in November revolved around the evidence-sharing process, otherwise known as discovery.
Under the program, judges prioritize the early disclosure of key evidence in new cases in which a defendant is incarcerated. Judges are also asked to set “firm yet realistic” deadlines for prosecutors to comply with discovery rules, and to schedule mandatory conferences where discovery disputes can be resolved quickly – arguments over discovery often lead to lengthy delays.
“We are encouraged that the new protocol has already seen consistent reductions in time for the completion of the discovery process, as well as a notable increase in agreed upon early resolutions of cases identified in the mandated off-calendar conferences,” Zayas said.
“The increased efficiency of the discovery process along with significant increased engagement between the parties and with the court in off-calendar conferences highlights the early success of this new protocol and is what we intend to build on with the implementation of the late-stage conferencing protocol addressing the oldest cases to be introduced to the counties next,” he added.
A spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration did not respond to the Eagle’s request for data the court system has collected on the implementation of the plan or what metrics the courts are using to judge its success.
Court officials told the Eagle that they’ll soon begin implementing the second part of the plan, which will see a group of court attorneys conduct late-stage case conferencing with prosecutors and defense attorneys to identify and resolve any outstanding issues to ensure the case is trial-ready. The next stage is meant to address some of the oldest cases clogging up the court system.
The final measure in the plan will involve the court system rolling out a citywide calendaring system, which will give prosecutors, attorneys and judges advanced notice on the timeline of cases. The effort is supposed to eliminate scheduling conflicts, which often delay the movement of cases.
Even as the courts begin to attempt to move pretrial detainees’ cases along, population concerns remain on Rikers.
Last week, the Department of Correction asked their oversight body, the Board of Correction, for permission to expand the number of beds in several of their facilities on Rikers Island.
Though their request was granted, DOC Assistant Deputy Warden Raymond Sanchez told the board they’ll likely ask for more space in the future.
“Despite these helpful gains in bed space, the need for additional bed space and continued flexibility will continue,” Sanchez said.
