By The Vanguard Staff
NEW YORK CITY, NY – A federal takeover of New York City’s Rikers Island jail might soon happen, commented a federal judge here this Tuesday amid “recent reports of violence and negligence,” and the safety of jail staff, according to the Associated Press.
Jail monitor Steve J. Martin accused the city jail chief Louis A. Molina, and his Correction staff, of “hiding information and shirking responsibility,” and detailed “violence and negligence — including a confrontation between correction officers and a detainee that left the detainee paralyzed from the neck down,” said AP.
Martin said as recently as last October the jail was “poised to turn things around at Rikers Island, in part because of his ‘courage to make unpopular changes, and creativity in his approach to solving decades-old problems,’” added AP.
But the wire service noted Martin’s “comments at the hearing, represented a stark about-face, with the monitor pointedly expressing a lack of trust in the agency.”
Lawyers for incarcerated people have called New York City to be “stripped of its authority over the jails, the judge, Laura T. Swain, said at a hearing Tuesday she was not yet ready to hear arguments for that option,” but said her “faith in the city’s leadership had been shaken by a series of alarming reports issued in recent weeks by a monitor who oversees the jails,” added the AP.
Jeffrey Powell, an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said the constitutional rights of incarcerated people on Rikers Island were being violated daily, and Mary Lynne Werlwas, director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society, renewed her calls for an outside authority to step in, noting in the AP story, “Thousands of lives are in serious jeopardy every day that the status quo continues.”
AP added in its story, “Federal prosecutors in Manhattan raised the prospect of a federal takeover of Rikers Island — where at least 38 people have died there in the past three years — in April 2022, suggesting that they might seek the appointment of an outside authority to run the jails.”
Monitor Martin also said he did not necessarily believe the Corrections Dept.’s claim that there have only been three deaths of in-custody incarcerated this year, adding, said AP, “Given recent concerns regarding the department’s lack of transparency and the accuracy of data provided, it is possible this number could be higher.”
Judge Swain asked jail boss Molina “directly why he and Mayor Eric Adams of New York City had made comments to the press defending his staff’s response to the episodes of violence and negligence, and whether there was “any reason I should not be disturbed” Molina had asked that several not be reported to the court,” said AP.
The media reported “episodes included the violent restraint of a person in custody, reportedly over 80 years old, and jails staffs’ failure to help an incarcerated person who was badly beaten by other inmates and left naked in the jails for hours.
AP reported Molina told the judge—he wasn’t happy with the response—he felt it necessary to let the public know that the episodes did not represent a “cascading, systemwide” crisis.
The mayor had told amNewYork that Martin’s reports had “caused a level of uproar” that was unfair to correction officers and to the incarcerated and had “created the wrong message.”
Martin will file a report that will “assess whether the city has managed to substantially reduce risk to those incarcerated and employed at Rikers Island, with an August hearing before Judge Swain to follow. Whether the city should be allowed to retain control of its jails is likely to be explored at that hearing,” reported the Associated Press.
“Rikers has endured decades of crisis: In 2017, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the complex would close within the next 10 years and be replaced by four smaller [units]. The plan depended” on reducing prisoners, but Rikers now has 6,000 incarcerated and the mayor doubts whether it can close, said AP.
“But shortly after the coronavirus pandemic arrived in March 2020, violent crime rose in New York City. A delay in the processing of court cases contributed to a rise in the population at Rikers. At the same time, hundreds of correction officers, who were hit hard by the virus, stopped showing up for work. By summer 2021, the complex was spiraling out of control,” explained the AP.
AP noted Molina and Adams have “restricted the release of public information about conditions inside. They have stopped informing news outlets when deaths occur and have made it difficult for a city watchdog to access video and other information from Rikers Island.”
Previously, Judge Swain was unwilling to allow representatives for incarcerated people even to argue in favor of a receiver, reported AP, but “[h]er comments on Tuesday marked the most permissive stance she has taken toward the possibility: She said that the representatives — which include lawyers from the Legal Aid Society and the Manhattan federal prosecutors — could propose a schedule for arguments about the appointment of an outside authority, in August.”
Kayla Simpson, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society, said in an interview after the hearing that the instructions from Judge Swain represented “an important signal about the gravity of the situation that we’re in,” said AP.
“Martin said in the three recent reports that the city’s stonewalling has hindered his ability to oversee Rikers. The first report, issued late last month, focused on five “serious and disturbing” incidents in which detainees were injured, harmed or fell ill.
“Martin said that he — and by proxy, Judge Swain — had been unaware of the events until reporters had asked about them. In response, Molina and Adams provided video to amNewYork Metro that they claimed showed Mr. Martin’s reports were flawed,” according to the AP story.
