By Jacob Kaye<\/p>\n
Not long ago, a massive brawl broke out on Rikers Island. <\/p>\n
It began when an officer left both doors to a food pantry \u2013 which was connected to two separate housing units \u2013 unlocked. When a different officer in one of the housing units abandoned his post, leaving it unsupervised, a group of detainees surged through the pantry into the neighboring unit. <\/p>\n
Over two dozen detainees began to fight. Some of them stormed into an unlocked janitor\u2019s closet, grabbed broomsticks and mop buckets, and began to use them as makeshift weapons. <\/p>\n
The fight only ended when a single officer arrived and doused the group with pepper spray. <\/p>\n
Despite the violation of the Department of Correction\u2019s policies laid bare during the fight, the agency did little, if anything, to address it, according to a new report from Rikers\u2019 remediation manager, who was granted by a judge earlier this year extraordinary power over the city\u2019s jails. <\/p>\n
The fight unfolded during the first few days of Deml\u2019s tenure, giving him a quick view into Rikers\u2019 \u201cchaotic\u201d environment. <\/p>\n
\u201cBy the next day, both units had returned to typical operation, with no apparent change in practice,\u201d Nicholas Deml, the remediation manager, wrote. <\/p>\n
The report, filed in federal court on Tuesday, marked Deml\u2019s first major public accounting of the conditions on Rikers Island and his first outline of his \u201caction plan\u201d to \u201cbring immediate and lasting change to the city jails\u201d since being tapped to help the city come into compliance with over a dozen provisions of the settlement in the detainee civil rights case known as Nunez v. the City of New York. <\/p>\n
Deml said his team, made up of around a dozen correctional experts, will focus on five priorities during its first 12 months \u2013 improving correctional and security practices; addressing the DOC\u2019s poor staffing deployment; strengthening individual and institutional accountability; modernizing the agency\u2019s data systems and technology; and promoting effective organizational leadership and governance. <\/p>\n
He made no promises about quick fixes. <\/p>\n
While each focus area included a number of goals and action items expected to be completed by June 30, 2027, true reform may not take root for a half dozen years or more. <\/p>\n
Deml, who officially began working in his role in February, was nonetheless optimistic about the jails\u2019 future. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe failures that define these jails developed over many decades and will not be resolved overnight,\u201d Deml said. \u201cYet these conditions can be reversed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy establishing foundational correctional practices, strengthening accountability, and building institutional capacity necessary to sustain reform\u2026the city can achieve constitutional compliance and ultimately resume full responsibility for its jail system,\u201d he added. \u201cThat is the objective of my office and the path toward a safer, more professional, and more dignified correctional system for all who live and work within it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The action plan released this week includes a number of deadlines, including some set for September. Deml is expected to create similar action plans for each year the city\u2019s jails are under the court\u2019s authority. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan\u2019s timelines are aggressive because the moment demands it,\u201d the remediation manager wrote. \u201cMeeting them will require the Department\u2019s immediate and focused attention. And if these timelines are not met, our intervention will deepen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deml\u2019s action plan was celebrated on Tuesday by the Legal Aid Society and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, which together represent detainees in the ongoing lawsuit. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis First Remediation Action Plan sets forth urgent priorities to protect incarcerated people from imminent harm and reform the culture of violence and impunity that has permeated the Department of Correction for years,\u201d the firms said in a statement. \u201cWe are hopeful the Remediation Manager will break DOC out of its cycle of meager reforms and immediate regression to finally bring real accountability, stability, and meaningful improvement inside our jails. <\/p>\n
\u2018A rare convergence of circumstances\u2019<\/p>\n
Despite the enormity of work ahead, Deml has assumed major control over the jails and the DOC at a potentially opportune time. <\/p>\n
Just as federal Judge Laura Swain was appointing Deml, so too was DOC Commissioner Stanley Richards, the first formerly incarcerated person to lead the agency, taking office. Richards, a reform-minded former criminal justice nonprofit leader who once served as a deputy commissioner in the DOC, has described his work with Deml as a \u201cpartnership.\u201d Unlike Mayor Eric Adams and his DOC commissioners, Richards and Mayor Zohran Mamdani have appeared to embrace Deml, despite the fact that the remediation manager has, by nature, stripped the city of its full ability to manage the jails. <\/p>\n
Deml praised Richards in Tuesday\u2019s report. <\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the problems facing the jails, I am encouraged that the current city administration and its appointed DOC leadership expressly support remediation and genuinely appear eager for reform,\u201d the remediation manager wrote. \u201cAcknowledging openly and publicly that the city jails are out of step with accepted practice and basic operational norms is a prerequisite to reform.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Deml also noted that Richards is not the first DOC commissioner over the past decade committed to reform. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, engagement alone is insufficient,\u201d he wrote. \u201cMore than a decade has passed without meaningful improvement in safety and constitutional compliance within the jail system. The Court\u2019s orders are clear, and the mandate of this office is to achieve compliance as expeditiously as possible. That responsibility does not pause for transitions in leadership or periods of institutional adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The remediation manager\u2019s work also has begun as the city has recommitted itself to shutting Rikers Island and replacing it with four borough-based jail facilities. <\/p>\n
While the city is running years behind the legally mandated August 2027 deadline to close Rikers, Mamdani has largely restarted the effort to shutter the dangerous jail complex after Adams, a longtime opponent of the plan he inherited, mostly ignored it. <\/p>\n
Deml will likely still have significant control over the DOC when the transition is completed, though facilitating the move to the borough-based jails does not fall within his purview. <\/p>\n
\u201cNew DOC leadership, my appointment, and the planned transition to modern borough-based facilities together present an opportunity to fundamentally reshape the New York City jail system,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBut that opportunity will be realized only through disciplined reform. New facilities alone will not cure the longstanding deficiencies identified by this Court. Lasting improvement depends on restoring sound correctional practice, strengthening leadership and accountability, and building organizational systems capable of sustaining safe and effective operations over time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jacob Kaye Not long ago, a massive brawl broke out on Rikers Island. It began when an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-297732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}