SDNY announces intention to take over Rikers Island
The Southern District of New York (SDNY) is taking its first steps to take over Rikers Island from the city’s Department of Correction (DOC).
(An aerial view of Rikers Island is seen in this undated photo. (Source: City of New York)
The Southern District of New York (SDNY) is taking its first steps to take over Rikers Island from the city’s Department of Correction (DOC).
On Monday, U.S. Attorney for SDNY Damian Williams announced his office is planning to push for the appointment of a receiver to address ongoing human rights violations within the prison complex.
"Rikers Island has been in crisis for years," Williams said in a statement Monday.
"This is a collective failure with deep roots, spanning multiple mayoral administrations and DOC commissioners," he added. "But after eight years of trying every tool in the toolkit, we cannot wait any longer for substantial progress to materialize."
The move comes one week after a special report by the Nunez Independent Monitor concluded that despite making some progress over the past eight years, there remains "a disturbing level of regression in a number of essential practices" in New York City detention centers.
Key findings from the Monitoring Team prove there "has been no meaningful relief for people in custody or staff" from violence, as well as excessive use of force.
The team offered a series of short-term recommendations to address the risk of harm over the coming months.
The body responsible for overseeing the compliance of the DOC is calling for contempt hearings to force the city, department, and commissioner to address the inhumane conditions facing incarcerated people in state facilities.
The call to initiate contempt proceedings would hold officials accountable for failing to address the pace of reform, improve security practices, and manage Nunez Court Orders.
The state of Rikers Island
The Blueprint reported in December that a record number of deaths occurred in police custody on Rikers Island in 2022.
2022 marked the deadliest year in the history of Rikers Island, with 19 people dying behind bars on the island complex.
Located between the Bronx and Queens, Rikers Island is known as one of the most brutal correctional facilities in the United States.
Of the 19 deaths in 2022, one person died from sepsis. Another choked on an orange and died.
So far, four people have died in custody in 2023. A fifth person died just days after their release.
The Consent Judgment, explained
The Monitor characterizes jails in New York City as "dangerous and unsafe," adding there is a "pervasive, imminent risk of harm" to both those in custody and staff.
Noting that disproportionate rates of use of force, stabbings and slashings, fights, assaults on staff, and deaths in custody are "disproportionately high," the report’s findings are plain and simple: "They are not typical, they are not expected, they are not normal."
Even more worrisome is the fact that use of force rates and incidents of violence are even higher than when the Consent Judgment went into effect in 2015. A Consent Judgment is a ruling that acts as a settlement between two parties without admission of guilt or liability from the defendants.
The judgment followed a multi-year investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York. The SDNY found that "a deep-seated culture of violence is pervasive" throughout adolescent facilities at Rikers.
Those findings resulted in the United States joining a class action lawsuit against the city that argued the Department of Correction (DOC) "engaged in a pattern and practice of using unnecessary and excessive force against inmates throughout the jail system."
But the class action lawsuit was thwarted in October 2015 when Judge Laura Taylor Swain issued the judgment, which forced the DOC "to develop and implement myriad new practices, systems, policies, and procedures to reduce violence and the use of excessive and unnecessary force."
Use of force incidents up 131 per cent compared to 2015
In the past three months alone, the Monitoring Team has released five reports and submitted two letters to the court. While findings are informed by a wide variety of factors like staffing, safety and security, staff discipline, and management of people in custody, the report stipulates that "no one metric adequately represents the multi-faceted nature of these requirements."
"While quantitative data is a necessary component of any analysis, relegating a nuanced, complex, qualitative assessment of progress towards achieving compliance with these requirements into a single, one-dimensional quantitative metric is not practical or advisable," the report reads.
For example, the Monitor notes that there are no national standards for a "safe" use of force rate, making it difficult to determine whether the department is meeting outcomes or not.
One barrier the report identified was the Department’s "inability or unwillingness to identify (and therefore address) the objective evidence regarding the pervasive dysfunction and harm that continues to occur daily in the jails." The Monitoring Team says the Department has failed to consult with them, representing "an impediment to reform."
The report showed that while use of force rates between January and May dropped by 25 per cent compared to 2021, the rate is still 131 per cent higher than the average when the Consent Judgment was issued in 2015.
Between June 2 and 15, the Monitoring Team received reports of 89 use of force incidents in police custody, "an extraordinarily high number suggesting a significant level of basic security failures." During the same time period, 30 uses of force were reported during searches, representing further security management failures.
"Real people are experiencing real trauma and pain and, in some cases, are suffering irreparable injuries and death," the report concludes.