Stanley Richards, the new DOC commissioner, sat down with the Eagle to discuss the critical moment the city, the DOC and its jails are in, as well as his philosophical approach to leading the department, how he’ll measure his performance, how he’ll address the growing number of deaths in the jails last year, and more.
Read MoreMore than two years after city jail officials cut off nonprofit-led social services at Rikers Island, several organizations are set to return this month to provide new programming inside the troubled jail complex.
Read MoreMayor Zohran Mamdani on Saturday appointed Stanley Richards, the former head of The Fortune Society, to serve as the city’s next commissioner of the Department of Correction.
Read MoreAfter more than a decade of failed reforms, mounting deaths, and repeated warnings from the courts, a federal judge on Tuesday took the extraordinary step of wresting control of New York City’s jail system from City Hall, appointing a former CIA agent and correctional expert to assume sweeping authority over Rikers Island and the Department of Correction.
Read MoreJail watchdogs found that correctional officers and medical staff on Rikers Island abandoned their posts and failed to check in on suicidal detainees in the lead up to a number of deaths in the dangerous jail complex last year.
Read MoreViolence on Rikers Island remains pervasive as the city waits for a federal judge to appoint a receiver to take over the jails.
Read MoreMayor Zohran Mamdani late Monday renewed a long-running state of emergency on Rikers Island, signing an executive order he acknowledged would prolong a controversial legal workaround used by his predecessor for years to skirt rules dictating how the city should treat detainees.
Read MoreThe death toll on Rikers Island continued to rise to its second-highest point in the past four years on Monday when a 33-year-old detainee died after allegedly having an allergic reaction in the city’s jail complex.
Read MoreThe sweeping powers of the yet-to-be-named receiver that will soon assume control over much of the city’s jail system were detailed in a recent ruling from a federal judge.
Read MoreAttorneys and families of people incarcerated on Rikers Island blasted the Department of Correction on Wednesday for what they described as a cruel, degrading and potentially unconstitutional process for visiting people locked in the dangerous jail complex.
Read MoreA 32-year-old man died on Rikers Island on Sunday morning, becoming the 14th person to die in the Department of Correction’s custody this year.
Read MoreA Rikers Island correctional officer will be fired after being found guilty this week of sexually abusing a woman in his Queens home – a decision that comes years after he was first accused by multiple detained women of sexually abusing them while on the job.
Read MoreThe City Council this week unanimously passed a bill that would require the Department of Correction to be more transparent about its use of a work release program meant to reduce the number of people housed on Rikers Island.
Read More“With the mayoral elections coming up, it's important that we seek out representatives who will do right by their constituents and abolish Rikers once and for all. “
Read MoreA question over the city’s plan to close Rikers Island and build four new borough-based jails as its replacement sparked one of the most contentious moments of Wednesday’s mayoral debate, the last before early voting gets underway this weekend.
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