{"id":137132,"date":"2026-02-18T10:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T10:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/137132\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T10:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T10:16:08","slug":"how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-rikers-we-asked-4-experts-for-their-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/137132\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Solve a Problem Like Rikers? We Asked 4 Experts for Their Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, a federal monitor overseeing the city\u2019s Department of Correction said the agency remains mired in the same dysfunction that prompted a court\u2019s intervention nearly a decade ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reform effort continues to progress at a glacial pace,\u201d said monitor Steve Martin<\/a>, citing entrenched resistance and \u201cpervasive poor practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new team \u2014 Nicholas Deml, the remediation manager,<\/a> and Stanley Richards, the commissioner<\/a> \u2014 will soon take charge of tackling the jail system\u2019s longstanding problems, including a rising jail population, rampant violence, a growing proportion of detainees with severe mental illness, a broken disciplinary system and a toxic culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where should they even begin? THE CITY asked four people with deep corrections expertise \u2014 two former DOC commissioners, a former top union official and the head of the commission pushing the city to shut down Rikers \u2014 for their suggestions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We lightly edited their comments for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

On reducing violence and the \u2018third rail\u2019 of restrictive housing<\/p>\n

Martin Horn, DOC commissioner from 2002 to 2009: The first priority has got to be safety \u2014 everybody\u2019s safety \u2014 right? So clearly, there is a duty of care to the incarcerated population, to the people that are locked up, and that has to be fulfilled. And there is a moral and pragmatic obligation to ensure the safety of staff and to ensure that staff feel sufficiently empowered and know the rules and that the rules make sense to them so that they can do their job the right way.<\/p>\n

There is a job to be done. Sometimes force has to be used to break up a fight, right? Sometimes people in custody attempt self harm, or sometimes they attack staff. Deml and Richards have to work together. You\u2019ve got two smart guys there who have to figure out how to do both. And that\u2019s the conundrum, how to do both simultaneously. It\u2019s not one or the other, it\u2019s both.<\/p>\n

Sidney Schwartzbaum, Assistant Deputy Wardens\/Deputy Wardens Association president, from 1991 to 2016: They need to provide more programs for the inmates, and they need to be able to isolate. Nobody wants to hear this. And you know it\u2019s like a third rail. You can\u2019t speak about it. You have to isolate those 10 to 15% who commit all the violence on Rikers Island. They talk about civil rights. The greatest civil right is for people to be safe.<\/p>\n

Zachary Katznelson, executive director of the Independent Rikers Commission: I think in terms of isolation, obviously, there\u2019s some people that can\u2019t safely be in the general population. What those units are going to look like is going to be front and center of the discussions with the remediation manager, the commissioner and the unions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How do you craft restrictive housing of some type that\u2019s actually going to be effective, that\u2019s actually going to be humane, that\u2019s going to try and meet people where they are, and not lock somebody in a box just for endless periods of time? And so I think you have to find that. It\u2019s a difficult middle, but it\u2019s one that can be found.<\/p>\n

Horn: The reality is, every day, correction officers intervene to stop two prisoners from killing each other. We read about the cases where they f\u2014 up. We read about the cases where the inmate committed suicide because the officer abandoned his post. We don\u2019t read about the cases where officers did intervene and did prevent an inmate from committing suicide. I think that\u2019s a failure of DOC\u2019s public relations office.<\/p>\n

\"WorkersWorkers overseeing daily functions on Rikers Island operate outside a jail facility, Dec. 8, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

On ending the \u2018abomination\u2019 of long jail stays<\/p>\n

Michael Jacobson, DOC commissioner from 1995 to 1998: The city has to deal with the length of stays.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roughly it\u2019s about a third of the people<\/a> at Rikers stay for a year or more. About a third of them \u201425% of them \u2014 stay for two years or more. Then there\u2019s a couple of hundred that stay for three years or more. I mean, you can\u2019t do that. It\u2019s really an abomination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t keep people, even in a good jail \u2014 and this is not a good jail \u2014 you can\u2019t keep people incarcerated pre-trial for one, two and three years. Those are prison numbers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that it flies in the face of any notion of speedy disposition of justice, which you should have in a democracy. It also results in not just an inflated population, which you have. But it\u2019s directly related to levels of violence by use of force. You can\u2019t keep people in a facility like this for a year, two years, three years, take them to court 10 times a year, strip, search them, put them in court, take them back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To think there\u2019s no relationship between that and violence: It\u2019s just wrong.<\/p>\n

We keep people far, far too long, longer than any city I know of in the country. And the taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars. But it\u2019s also one of the key ways to deal with the chaos you see on the island.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They have to get those length of stays down \u2014 you need that to happen for Rikers to close.<\/p>\n

Horn: The length of stay issue will not get resolved unless the remediation manager takes it on. And the mayor has got to take on the courts, the DAs and the defense bar, who are all complicit in allowing the length of stay to go up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When you look at what is driving the violence, disproportionately, it is people in custody who are there for inordinately long periods of time, and that is something that is not within the control of the commissioner.<\/p>\n

No mayor or governor has ever gone on to higher office because somebody said they did a great job on the jails or the prisoners. That\u2019s not what they want to be spending their time on. But this mayor has to take on this issue. It is incomprehensible to me how large a proportion of the people in custody are spending inordinate periods of time. That\u2019s unconscionable.<\/p>\n

On meeting the needs of severely mentally ill detainees<\/p>\n

Katznelson: The focus clearly has to be on safety for everybody inside, for the staff, incarcerated people. I think a few areas to start: one is people with serious mental illness, and that it\u2019s a growing proportion of the population. The latest figures I saw was 23% of the people at Rikers have a serious mental illness, and not only is it very difficult to provide them with adequate care inside, sometimes it\u2019s virtually impossible.<\/p>\n

We have staff that don\u2019t have the right training \u2014 that feel very unsupported in basically being psychiatric workers without training and support. And then they\u2019re coming out, and 47% of people with mental illness are right back in Rikers within a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And so that is doing two things: it\u2019s artificially inflating the jail population, so we\u2019ve got more people that are in there than are really needed for public safety, because we don\u2019t have the resources in the community. But also it\u2019s really harming people inside and out.<\/p>\n

If you want to focus on improving conditions in Rikers, one of the realities is it just has way too many people in there for the DOC to handle.<\/p>\n

I would start trying to make sure that people inside with serious mental illness get treatment, get support and are stable when they get out. And that means training for staff and really focusing on the units with people with serious mental illness. And it means making absolutely sure that people have a strong reentry plan when they get out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Horn: For better or worse, I would say for worse, the city and state have failed to address the crisis. The mental health system has allowed the severely mentally ill to be jailed instead of hospitalized and treated. It is unconscionable that the city has been unable to open the additional mental health beds in Health and Hospitals that were promised as part of the Rikers population reduction plan.<\/p>\n

I understand that the DOC says they don\u2019t have staff to man those units in Bellevue. In the state mental health system, they have personnel who function as security personnel, and maybe HHC needs to look at their staffing also. New York has a sheriff\u2019s department that could be directed to devote staff to assist. They\u2019ve got to think outside the box.<\/p>\n

I think one of the shortcomings of the judge\u2019s order is that it does not give the remediation manager clear authority to direct the activities of Correctional Health Services, which remain under the purview of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and HHC. And a lot of the inmate deaths fall at their feet, not at the feet of the DOC. And if the commissioner and the remediation manager cannot obtain a higher level of service, then I think they are doomed to failure.<\/p>\n

If I was there, I\u2019d be banging down the door of the health commissioner and HHC president. I used to meet with former city Health Department Commissioner Tom Frieden about correctional health issues monthly. I should have been meeting with him daily. It\u2019s so friggin\u2019 critical. The officers didn\u2019t sign on to work in mental hospitals. They signed on to work in a jail.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Department of Correction Commissioner was headquartered on Rikers Island, Dec. 8, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

On fixing problems with staffing levels, morale, training and culture<\/p>\n

Schwartzbaum: The first thing they have to do is build up morale. The morale in that department needs a resuscitation. Speaking to officers, they feel they\u2019re in a no win situation. If they take action, they\u2019re afraid of over discipline. If they don\u2019t take any action, they\u2019re afraid of getting disciplined. So they virtually don\u2019t have any confidence that they can effectuate their role as a correction officer in controlling the inmate population.<\/p>\n

I want you to highlight this: In the police department, you take a test for captain. For the [similar] rank in the correction department, deputy warden, they have some criteria, but it\u2019s not a civil service test. If they had a civil service title, I think you\u2019d get a better, more qualified person.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been clamoring for a civil service test since the days of (former DOC official) Anthony Serra and (former DOC Commissioner) Bernie Kerik where people were getting promoted based on if they were involved in the GOP political fundraising and poll watching. It was based on who you knew rather than what you knew.<\/p>\n

But the department was moving in the opposite direction. They wanted to bring in people from the outside. But it didn\u2019t work. Since they started doing that, look at the stats \u2014 the violence has gone up exponentially as a direct result of bringing people from the outside who don\u2019t know the nomenclature of the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Katznelson: One of the essential pieces to getting a handle on Rikers is a staffing analysis. DOC has not done a staffing analysis for decades. DOC needs to understand exactly what they need to get the job done. The unions should be part of that analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We need to know how many people we need to run Rikers safely. I don\u2019t think anyone can answer that question and that\u2019s an important and essential question.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Horn: You have to change the culture. Whenever you look at these videos about DOC, what you see is brawn and bravado. You see the emergency service unit, you see the fire unit, you see trainees learning jujitsu or whatever. You never see them training the staff about their duty of care.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that the job is unattractive and unpleasant because of the working conditions, the physical plant, the level of violence and dealing with the mentally ill. You\u2019ve got to make the job more attractive. Salary wise, they earn the same thing as the NYPD. Is the NYPD having a hiring problem?<\/p>\n

Katznelson: Make sure that staff have the right training to actually grapple with the population they\u2019re being asked to deal with. For instance, people with serious mental illness. For years, DOC trained correctional staff and healthcare staff together to run the units of people with serious mental illness. That joint training hasn\u2019t taken place since Covid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You also need to have consistency across all the different jails. Eight jails are effectively operating on Rikers right now, all with different rules and expectations for staff or incarcerated people and inconsistencies about accountability, discipline. Things need to be standardized, and obviously you want to allow the leadership of different jails to have some freedom to make decisions. But you can\u2019t have eight different systems that are sometimes wildly different in their approach to corrections and expectations. It\u2019s part of the reason we have the mess we have now.<\/p>\n

Change is only going to come if officers on the front lines buy into the change and have the support they need. Right now there aren\u2019t enough captains to cover everywhere. Rikers could even consider adding a senior correction officer title like in Westchester. That added layer of support and supervision really helps with mentoring and day to day feedback. It gives you another sounding board and decision maker on the front lines. And that\u2019s where the change is going to happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Horn: In the summer of 2003 there was a blackout in the city. We went out to Rikers and established a command center. I invited former Correction Officers Benevolent Association President Norman Seabrook to sit in the command center and walk around the jails at night with me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You have got to make the union part of the solution. You can\u2019t just bang them over the head because at the end of the day you need them to run the jails. You need to win them over. You need to convince them that at the end of the journey there\u2019s a better world for us.<\/p>\n

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