The quality of the DOC’s investigations into staff appeared to take a nose dive following former Mayor Eric Adams’ appointment of former Commissioner Louis Molina, according to Steve J. Martin, the federal monitor appointed by Swain to track conditions in the jails.
Martin said in an April 2023 report that a “disturbing trend” in the investigations unit began to show itself half a year after Molina took office.
“Beginning in summer 2022, a discernible deterioration in the quality of investigations conducted by ID was identified and there was evidence that ID was not consistently addressing or analyzing the available evidence and their conclusions did not appear to be objective,” the monitor said at the time.
According to Martin, a greater number of investigations were being closed without action, a significantly smaller number of cases were being referred for further investigation, and misconduct was being identified much less frequently than in the past.
He also said that staff at the unit “had been influenced or prompted, either overtly or implicitly, to adopt a more lenient approach when assessing cases and to change their practice in ways that compromised the quality of the investigations.”
While the DOC began to address the issues within the investigations unit, it still has not been able to come into full compliance with the consent judgment.
In the monitor’s most recent compliance report, which was issued in January, Martin said that while the investigation division had “emerged from the state of turmoil that began in 2022 and ended in spring 2024…addressing the damage from ID’s mismanagement will take time.”
According to the monitor, the DOC’s inability to consistently conduct rigorous investigations has contributed to its troubles with reining in use of force incidents and other claims of misconduct by staff.
Though the rate of use of force incidents has declined by 6 percent over the last year, it remains higher than it did before the pandemic, according to DOC data.
The monitor described a number of disturbing use of force incidents in his January report. Among them was an incident that unfolded in December 2025 when a group of correctional officers were walking a detainee back to his housing area on Rikers Island.
With the detainee’s hands cuffed behind his back and his feet in shackles, he fell to the floor and began convulsing. Thinking he was faking the episode, six officers told the man to get up, while a seventh officer walked into a janitor’s closet, away from the cameras in the hall.
Inside the closet, the officer covered the bottom of his boot in pepper spray, and then walked out and put his boot directly in front of the detainee’s face. When the man began to convulse again, an officer turned him on his side and moved him closer to the closet, putting his face directly next to an orange bootprint. After the man began to complain about the pepper spray on the floor, the officer bent the detainee’s wrists, causing him to scream in pain.
“Don’t resist, sir,” the officer said.
The incident was under investigation by the Investigation Division at the time of the report.
Benny Boscio, the president of the Correctional Officers Benevolent Association, said in a statement that the union “will have a strong voice advocating to protect the rights of our members…[r]egardless of how the new DOC organizational chart is structured.”
“It’s imperative that decision makers at all levels tap into our institutional knowledge, which can be harnessed to maximize our common goal of enhanced safety and security for everyone in our facilities,” he added.
The new investigation unit was not the only change to the DOC’s structure created in the new organizational chart.
The chief of department, the highest-ranking uniformed DOC officer, will now begin to report to both Deml and Richards – the commissioner will provide daily operational leadership to the chief of department, while the remediation manager will oversee officer deployment, the creation and implementation of operational reform efforts, and changes to operational policy.
Top deputies in the commissioner’s office will continue to report directly to Richards, who, alongside Deml, will have dual authority over the DOC’s finances, facilities, procurement practices, labor relations, legal matters and more.