Detainees stuck on Rikers, report finds
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Systemic delays in the justice system stemming from the pandemic have caused detainees to spend months longer in the city’s jails, a new report found. AP file photo by Bebeto Matthews
By Jacob Kaye
A new report from the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice says that systemic delays in the city’s justice system has led to pre-trial detainees languishing on Rikers Island for months longer than they did pre-pandemic.
The October report, which examines the justice system’s role in driving up the city’s jail population, found that a series of mounting crises has led to incarcerated people being held for over nine months – 88 days longer on average than before the start of the pandemic. Around 30 percent of the current population in the city’s jail has been held for over a year, mostly all of whom are held on felony charges.
“When these detainees' right to a speedy resolution of their cases isn't realized, Rikers functions as a de facto prison,” the report reads.
The report comes during the deadliest year on Rikers since 2016. This year has seen the death of 14 people in Department of Correction custody, including two in the past week.
Though the city’s jail population was on a steady decline for most of the past decade, it began to spike in August 2020. In August of this year, there were around 6,000 detainees in the city’s jails, the report said. Nonetheless, the spike in population was still 46 percent smaller than it was in January 2014.
“What we need to do is move all these cases,” the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice Director Marcos Soler said at a Board of Correction hearing earlier this week. “We have a substantial number of people that have been in jail for the entire pandemic and what we need is for the defenders, for the courts, for the DAs, to work with the city...to make sure these cases are moving.”
According to the report, staffing shortages on Rikers Island have led to fewer detainees being transported to court appearances, which has led to fewer trial hearings in felony cases and fewer depositions, which then causes delays in proceedings and causes cases to take longer to complete.
“The impact of COVID-19 led to the near shutdown of court proceedings for months,” the report reads. “Yet the number and proportion of defendants held in custody by the City's Department of Correction that are making their scheduled court appearances remains a fraction of the levels seen pre-pandemic.”
In August 2019, around 5.5 percent of the city’s jail population was being taken to and from court to make appearances, the report says. In August 2020, less than 2 percent of the jails population was being taken to courthouses.
To mitigate some of the transportation issues, Mayor Bill de Blasio and DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi announced last month that NYPD officers would take correctional officers’ place inside courthouses in New York City.
“We can't have partial justice,” de Blasio said in August. “It's affecting public safety, it is affecting the situation on Rikers. We need a fully functioning court system.
Lucian Chalfen, a spokesperson with the Office of Court Administration, said that cases are moving. While felony trial numbers aren’t as high as they were pre-pandemic, Chalfen said that the characterization, repeated by the mayor and outlined in the report, that the courts are at a standstill isn’t accurate.
“A major reason the Rikers Island population remains in stasis, is that the Department of Correction doesn’t produce defendants for court dates, or make them available to attorneys for conferences - delaying the trial process,” Chalfen said. “In terms of operations in the State Court System, the blame shifting and nonsensical rhetoric from City Hall, doesn’t show that Criminal and Supreme Courts in New York City are quite active.”
Adhering to COVID-19 precautions has prolonged the process for starting and completing jury trials, according to the OCA.
Chalfen said that there have been 82 felony trials conducted in the city, 7,657 felony cases disposed in Supreme Court and 97,332 cases of all types disposed in New York City Criminal Court.
There have also been over 104,900 felony and misdemeanor cases resolved in the city this year, according to the OCA.
The court system is working, and continuing to increase activity as much as possible,” Chalfen said. “What’s not working is the Mayor and his administration constantly attempting to shift the blame for a generational unraveling of order in New York City based on a complex number of factors, but nuance isn’t a characteristic of a narcissist.”
