The court-appointed federal oversight official tasked with fixing the failings of New York City’s infamous Rikers Island jail complex issued his first report on Tuesday, detailing a month-by-month plan to resolve the safety and legal issues identified by a landmark 2015 lawsuit.
Nicholas Deml, appointed in January by U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain to help restructure Rikers to ensure its conditions comply with the U.S. Constitution, wrote in his first report that a lot still needed to be done to fix the jail: “Despite decades of litigation, reform efforts, and judicial intervention,” he wrote, the city still “confines individuals awaiting trial in dismal conditions that “manifestly violate the Constitution and would shock the conscience of any citizen who knew of them.”
Swain said she had determined Deml needed to be appointed after determining the city couldn’t handle carrying out improving Rikers in accordance with the provisions in the landmark Nunez v. New York City settlement without additional guidance. Though the jail complex is slated to close in 2027, it’s unlikely to do so until the early 2030s, and courts have determined it necessary to ensure its conditions are constitutional until its doors actually shut.
Deml’s guidance will continue at least until the city’s shift to borough-based jails is complete.
“The Department of Correction (DOC) struggles to perform even the most basic correctional functions: staffing posts, securing housing units, and keeping staff and people in its custody safe from violence,” Deml wrote in his 33-page report Tuesday.
He concluded that funding priorities are misaligned, the physical infrastructure is physically “crumbling,” and, despite a decade’s worth of recommendations from court-appointed Rikers Monitor Steven Martin, DOC still operates “without a cohesive strategy to address these systemic failures.”
To begin addressing this and to bring Rikers into compliance with the Nunez settlement, Deml laid out a one-year plan with monthly benchmarks to improve five “key areas”:
Core correctional and security functions
Staffing practices
Institutional accountability
Data collection and technology
Effective leadership and governance.
His report indicated that it doesn’t address every provision of Nunez, completely reforming the jail system would be a “years-long effort,” and he would continue making one-year plans as long as necessary.
The directives focus primarily on DOC using the next year to lay out specific plans and take foundational steps to prevent staff from acting violently towards inmates, fixing broken cell doors, increasing programming to support incarcerated people, improving data collection and ensuring there are people accountable for what’s going on in the prison complex, a plan the Legal Aid Society commended.
“In particular, we are pleased the Remediation Action Plan recognizes that promoting the dignity and well-being of incarcerated people – including through the provision of robust, meaningful programming – is a key component to keeping jails safe,” the advocacy organization said in a statement. “We applaud the plan’s focus on increasing both the volume and variety of programming, as well as engaging community-based service providers. The City must commit to the expansion of community-based programming that the plan requires, and provide all resources necessary to achieve it as soon as possible.”
Staffing practices
Staffing, the court said, is one of the areas where improvement is most critical: “mismanagement of staff is inextricably linked to high rates of force and violence in the jails,” the court wrote in 2024, and the initial settlement agreement required an end to unnecessarily violent conditions and abuse of inmates by staff.
By October, DOC must submit a completed staffing assessment, supported by validated data, that identifies deficiencies in posts, scheduling, deployment, including distribution of uniform staff across security and civilian roles and supervision. Within the next year, DOC must create an improved staffing model and begin executing whatever new staffing plan has been established and agreed upon by Deml.
The plan will be adjusted for each facility in the eventual borough-based jail system.
Accountability and Leadership
Rikers tends to escape accountability, Deml wrote, because so many city and state agencies have a hand in its operations, yet none take responsibility when things go wrong. That needs to change, he said, and quickly.
“Years of inconsistent leadership, eroded correctional practice, and weak accountability left the Department unable to reliably perform many of its core functions,” Deml wrote. “Lasting reform demands more than correcting isolated deficiencies. It requires building the Department’s capacity to manage its vast daily operations in a manner that is consistent with its strategic priorities and organizational values.”
To help remedy this, by September, DOC must submit a proposal for a redesigned Investigations, Intelligence, and Accountability Division, which is responsible for carrying out the majority of investigations in Rikers. By October, it must provide a proposal of resources and staffing needed.
And, within a year, DOC must propose a training plan detailing all facets of investigative and intelligence training, including any needs for remedial training for existing investigators that Deml expects to have approved.
In terms of improving leadership, Deml directed DOC to create and implement a plan to restructure engagement between executive and facility-level leadership within the next year, so there aren’t lapses in communication that result in safety issues.
Core correctional and security functions
By October, DOC must submit to Deml a proposed order of priority for addressing lapses in core correctional and security practices that aligns with Nunez provisions. It must include things like plans to fix unsecured doors; staff abandoning posts; post orders; routine tours; searches; facility emergency response teams; escorted movement with restraints where required and control of undue congregation of detainees around secure doors. Within the next year, DOC must being operationalizing the plan and submitting monthly reports.
Specifically, DOC must submit to Deml a list of all the cell doors that need replacing by September and by October, DOC must submit a procurement order for all necessary doors and develop a plan for replacing them.
Notably, Deml’s plan has a heavy focus on increasing productive programming for those incarcerated, both whom will remain on Rikers for an extended period of time and those nearing release, writing that offering people support is necessary for stability within jail, limits future justice system involvement and allows people to return to their communities and participate in work and family life.
Within the next year, Deml said he will work with the city and DOC to determine the appropriate amount – he estimates $50 million – to be allocated in the department’s annual budget for community-based programming.
“Programming also plays an important role in supporting behavioral stability within facilities. Regular, structured activities reduce unstructured movement and idle congregation, strengthen facility routines, and improve overall institutional order,” Deml wrote. “Programming is a key component of successful reentry. It supports the development of practical skills—such as communication, conflict resolution, and daily functioning—that are necessary for stability following release.”
And, within the next year, DOC must develop a plan for new placement options for inmates following serious acts of violence including the process for staff selection, inclusion criteria for the population, a staffing plan, staff training, programming and creating a pilot housing program.
Technology
By October, the DOC must provide identifying and documenting gaps in its data management systems, accounting for the Nunez recommendations and by April, DOC must submit a strategic plan for integrated technology that prioritizes and sequences the actions necessary to remediate the identified gaps and to modernize DOC’s data systems.
Within the next year, the DOC must start carrying out the data and technology improvement plans and develop a proposed “business intelligence tool” to provide better insight into the department’s daily decision-making processes.
Deml’s plan must be approved by Swain, the federal judge on the case, in order to go into effect.