Council grills DOC on drugs in city’s jail
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DOC Commissioner Louis Molina testifies at a City Council hearing on the proliferation of drugs on Rikers Island on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Photo by Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit
By Rachel Vick
The New York City Council Committee on Criminal Justice held a hearing to discuss the presence and prevalence of drugs in the city’s jails on Tuesday.
The hearing was held as deaths on Rikers attributable to overdoses have been on the rise, and as data shows that drug seizures increased during the pandemic, particularly during a period when visitors were not allowed on the island.
Department of Correction’s Commissioner Louis Molina was on hand after missing last week’s Board of Correction meeting to answer questions from the committee led by Councilmember Carlina Rivera.
“We want to have a better understanding of the root causes behind a significant increase in drug related deaths of people in city custody, particularly over the past two years,” Rivera said.
Opinions on where the drugs were coming from varied. Some councilmembers questioned whether or not the drugs were being trafficked into the city’s jail complex by correctional officers. DOC leadership said they were getting in through mail, and other sources.
According to Rivera an undercover investigator was able to sneak drugs into the Brooklyn and Manhattan Detention Center.
“The rate of drugs found within our jails has increased during a time when in person visits were suspended due to the pandemic and according to data obtained by THE CITY [and] mail recoveries could not account for a majority of the surge,” she said. “This raises serious concerns that security isn't factor three deteriorated following the escaping DOI investigations and signals that the department still has ways to go to adequately enforce directives meant to stop contraband from entering jails.”
Overdoses are up from last year, according to Molina, who said when the year closes in several months, he expects the number of overdoses to reach a new high. The commissioner attributed the rise in overdoses to incarcerated people unknowingly using fentanyl.
New York City reported the highest number of overdose deaths since 2000 in 2020 and the city’s health department expects 2021 numbers to exceed the 2020 total. From January to September 2022, there were 321 suspected or confirmed overdoses.
There have been three confirmed fentanyl-related deaths so far this year on Rikers Island, where a total of 17 people have died, Molina said.
Molina and other DOC officials say that the contraband is primarily coming through mail and packages, after hearing “qualitative” claims that fentanyl was being brought in through soaked paper incarcerated people would smoke.
They were unable to provide a number of how many reports of drug-laced books were made or confirm if a lab had positively identified the substances.
“I assure you it is happening through the mail and through packages,” one DOC representative said. “And this is not myth. This is the reality that we live with.”
Councilmembers took a different view, and asked what the DOC was doing to ensure that its officers – some of whom have been arrested for smuggling drugs and other contraband into the jail – were not the perpetrators.
Scans with the capacity to show the equivalent of a cavity search are only used for visitors — not officers. Molina claimed that while he was not opposed to the idea of a more intense search procedure for officers starting their shifts, the agency doesn’t have the resources to do so.
“In principle, I'm not against the scanning of staff members,” he said. “There are jurisdictions that do that. We have very outdated facilities as you know, in addition to that they have not been [renovated] so the body scanners are pretty big in their footprint.”
Members of the committee criticized Molina’s explanation, and pointed to persistent overdoses even while visitation was not allowed during the pandemic. Between April 2020 and May 2021, only a third of the drugs recovered were seized from incoming mail and twice as much was brought into the facility when no visitors were allowed on the island compared to pre-pandemic, according to Rivera
The DOC has distributed more than 46,000 naloxone kits to detainees and visitors to share with their loved ones inside since 2016, and Correctional Health services has trained 2,000 officers in its use.
“I really do want to strongly encourage you Commissioner Molina to accommodate the necessary investments and layout modifications to ensure that staff are going through body scanner,” Councilmember Lincoln Restler said. “I know from your team and from your testimony, there's a lot of concern about what's coming in the mail but there has to be just as much concern about what's coming in, in every other capacity, and I know you're focused on visitors, and I hope that you will similarly focus on DOC staff. “
Restler condemned and pointed to persistent staff absenteeism as a contributing factor to drug use as detainees are left in “squalor.” The councilmember also accused Molina’s request to up the amount of a time a person can be held in their cell as contributing to the unsafe conditions on Rikers Island.
“The failure for officers to show up and do their jobs is contributing in a dramatic way to the crisis that we're facing on Rikers Island,” he added. “Another contributing factor is the fact that you've reversed the policy of ensuring that individuals have 14 hours a day out of cell time and I think hiding under the emergency policy that's in place to limit the amount of time that people are out of their cells undermines their health undermines their well being undermines the safety of the facilities.”
The committee is holding a hearing on the potential for a federal receivership next month.
Advocates and members of the public who offered testimony echoed the importance of a holistic approach to substance abuse for the already at-risk detainee population.
Brian Carmichael, an organizer with the Freedom Agenda and an addict in recovery, criticized the impact of cuts to programs like Narcotics Anonymous due to staffing shortage-induced lockdowns.
“I think the most valuable tools that any bureau, any department has, are the programs like AA and all the 12-step programs that are the first ones cut when there's an officer shortage,” he said. “Nobody's ever been able to keep drugs out of [a jail]… but when such a high percentage of people have substance abuse problems, and when such a high percentage have mental health issues, and they can't access all these programs because a CO is calling in sick, then they're going to self medicate.“
“Drugs and alcohol aren't the problem,” he added. “They're just symptoms of the problem.”
