Mamdani names longtime reformer to lead jail watchdog amid ongoing crisis on Rikers

Christopher Watler was named chair of the Board of Correction by Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. Photos via the mayor’s office and AP/Seth Wenig

By Jacob Kaye

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday appointed longtime criminal justice reformer Christopher Watler to lead the city’s jail oversight board, the Eagle has learned.

Watler, who serves as the executive vice president of the nonprofit Center for Employment Opportunity, is Mamdani’s first pick for chair of the Board of Correction, the civilian watchdog group that sets minimum standards for detainee treatment in the city’s correctional facilities, including on Rikers Island.

Watler will succeed Felipe Franco, who has spent most of the year serving as the BOC’s interim chair. Franco took over the post after it was vacated by Dwayne Sampson, former Mayor Eric Adams’ appointee who was often criticized by advocates for failing to use the board’s oversight authority to hold the Department of Correction to account and who regularly clashed with the board’s criminal justice reform-minded members. During Sampson’s tenure, a federal judge stripped the city of its full authority over management of Rikers Island, and more than 30 people died while in DOC custody.

Watler, who has spent decades helping to craft and implement reentry programs and services for those being released from jails or prisons, will inherit oversight of an agency that has continued to be condemned for its inability to tamp down violence and enact court-ordered reforms in the jails. In recent weeks, a federal judge, her monitor and her remediation manager – who earlier this year assumed control over major aspects of the DOC and its jails – have knocked DOC Commissioner Stanley Richards, who was appointed to the role by Mamdani at the start of the year, for backsliding on the reform efforts after promising to remain transparent and cooperative with oversight bodies, including the BOC.

As BOC chair, Watler will also be tasked with monitoring the city’s closure of Rikers Island and creation of four new borough-based jails. Though city law requires the city to shutter the jails by August 2027, officials have acknowledged the deadline will be impossible to meet. The Mamdani administration is reportedly working on a new plan to close Rikers, and the City Council is drafting a bill that would extend the deadline to do so, the Eagle reported in September.

In the meantime, violence and dysfunction have continued to plague the jail complex and the DOC, which has seen eight people die in its custody this year.

In a statement shared with the Eagle, Watler, who will lead his first BOC meeting on Tuesday afternoon, said that incarcerated New Yorkers “deserve the same access to justice, health care, jobs and housing that we all want.”

“For too long, the people under care in our jails have been denied the dignity, safety and justice that the law promises and our conscience demands,” Watler said. “In this position, I look forward to working with my colleagues on the board, the dedicated BOC staff, NYC DOCs leadership, union leaders, advocates, City Council, the Correctional Health Services Team, remediation manager, federal monitor and other partners to ensure the safety and humane treatment of the people held in the city’s care and the safety of our staff and partners working in the jails.”

A native New Yorker, Watler worked for more than two decades at the Center for Justice Innovation, where he developed reentry, diversion and eviction prevention programs.

At the Center for Employment Opportunity, Watler oversees the nonprofit’s reentry and diversion programs in the more than 30 cities where it operates. He previously served as executive director of the organization’s New York State program.

Mamdani said in a statement that Watler “understands that community safety and justice go hand in hand, and that means improving conditions for people in custody, supporting the staff who care for them and finally closing Rikers Island.”

“Christopher Watler has spent his career helping New Yorkers navigate a criminal legal system that too often fails to treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve,” the mayor said. “I am confident he will lead the Board of Correction with integrity and an unwavering commitment to that work.”

Watler and Richards come from the same world. Before becoming the first formerly incarcerated person to lead the DOC, Richards spent years at The Fortune Society, which provides a plethora of services to current and formerly incarcerated New Yorkers, ending his career at the nonprofit as its executive director.

In his new role, Watler will be tasked with ensuring Richards’ DOC adheres to the BOC’s minimum standards, which have largely been suspended since September 2021 under an executive order that Mamdani, like his two most recent predecessors, has extended every five days since taking office. The minimum standards set requirements for many aspects of life behind bars in New York City, including how many hours of recreation the DOC should provide to detainees, the frequency and availability of visits with family or attorneys, limits on solitary confinement and access to medical care. The executive order, which was first passed by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, declares a state of emergency within the DOC’s jails, preventing the agency from having to adhere to the standards.

Members of the board have long pushed back on the continuation of the executive order. When announcing his decision to issue the order in January, Mamdani said he had been presented with a tough choice – had he allowed the executive order to lapse, the city would immediately fall out of compliance with the BOC’s minimum standards.

But when exactly the order will be revoked remains unclear.

In the years since the executive order was first issued, the BOC has continued to demand the DOC’s compliance with many of its minimum standards and with its oversight authority, leading to several clashes between the board and DOC leadership.

In a statement, Richards said that he was “look[ing] forward to working” with the BOC’s new chair.

“We have set [the DOC] on a course to improve conditions for all who live and work in our jails and the Board of Correction is a vital partner in fulfilling that mission,” the commissioner said. “Chair Watler brings a wealth of experience that makes him exceptionally well-suited for this role.”

Watler’s appointment also received praise from former DOC Commissioner Michael Jacobson.

“The appointment of Chris Watler as the chair of the New York City Board of Correction is an inspired choice by Mayor Mamdani,” Jacobson, who currently serves as the director of the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance, said in a statement. “At a moment when the city has committed to closing Rikers Island, shrinking the size of the jail system, improving conditions for those incarcerated as well as the staff who work in these facilities and, in a few years, opening smaller and more modern borough based jails, the oversight from the Board of Corrections has never been more important and meaningful as it is right now.”

“The entirety of Chris’s professional career and the unwavering respect he has from those he has helped as well as from community leaders, judges, advocates, government, nonprofit and elected officials all combine to make him the ideal choice for this important job especially at this historical moment,” he added.