Adams administration should be held in contempt for Rikers conditions, federal monitor says

The federal monitor overseeing city jails recommended Monday that a judge consider holding the Adams administration in contempt for failing to implement promised improvements to safety on Rikers Island, possibly paving the way for a federal takeover of city jails.

In his report to U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain, the monitor, Steve Martin, documented, with images from surveillance footage, several horrific incidents from recent weeks in which correction officers lost control at the jails. In one incident a detainee blocked an officer from intervening in a group assault on another detainee, and in another, nine detainees entered a detainee’s cell after midnight and allegedly assaulted him physically and sexually for 16 minutes even though an officer was stationed nearby.

Martin’s recommendation that the court initiate contempt proceedings against the city, Department of Correction, and Correction Commissioner Louis Molina is an extraordinary break from the more collaborative approach the monitoring team has previously taken. If found in contempt of the Nunez federal consent decree of 2015, which led to the installation of a federal monitor to oversee mandated safety improvements at the jail, the city itself and correction officials could be fined.

But Martin said beyond the contempt proceedings, “additional” measures are needed to “catalyze the substantive changes required to protect the safety and welfare of the many people held in custody and who work in the jails.” Those measures, based on precedents in other cities, could be a federal receivership, which would strip the city of control of the jails and put them in the hands of a court-appointed receiver.

While Martin didn’t mention the word “receiver” in his 288-page report, some activists, defense attorneys, and elected officials who have argued for receivership in recent months read his comments as signaling support. Swain could allow papers to be filed seeking a receivership next month.

Martin has had oversight over the jails at Rikers Island and elsewhere in the city, at a cost to taxpayers of about $20 million, since 2016. He was installed through a federal consent decree following a lawsuit over excessive violence and officer use of force.

And yet Martin has concluded that conditions at the jails have only gotten worse during his tenure, with average monthly use of force 131% higher than it was then, and annual injuries from uses of force skyrocketing from 74 in 2016 to 434 last year, according to his latest report. The average monthly rate of stabbings or slashings has also gone up 243% since 2016.

“Throughout the eight-year period, the jails’ safety has continued to deteriorate in an alarming fashion, producing negative outcomes that occur far more often than in 2016,“ Martin wrote.

As he had in another damning report last month, Martin raised incidents from May that he found particularly alarming, including the tackling of a shackled and handcuffed man by officers, resulting in injuries that ended in paralysis. Martin said that Correction Commissioner Louis Molina falsely described what led to the incident as an “escape attempt” and said the detainee had assaulted staff, even though the man was fully restrained.

“This incident is but one example of the Department’s continued efforts to minimize staff’s culpability in such tragic outcomes and to ignore its duty to identify such conduct for what it is—poor security practices that elevate, rather than minimize, the imminent risk of harm to people in custody,” Martin wrote.

A spokesperson for the Department of Correction referred questions about the report to the mayor’s office. Kayla Mamelak, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, said in a statement that officials "remain committed to continued reform and working with the monitor."

"While we are still reviewing this recently released report, we are prepared to fully defend against any contempt motion and the record will reflect the important and necessary steps New York City has taken to make continued progress," she said.

The monitoring team cited numerous examples of the city not having sufficient control over operations at Rikers, alleging that officers have ceded the housing units to people in custody. This has led to “multiple serious injuries with no intervention or supervision by staff,” the monitor wrote, adding that “assailants had unfettered and uninterrupted access to their victims.”

A picture included in the report shows detainees beating another detainee in an area that lacked officers; when an officer tried to go upstairs to intervene, a detainee blocked the office’s path. So the officer watched the beating, which ultimately required hospitalization, from a stairwell.

In another incident on May 31, nine detainees entered a cell after midnight, when the unit was supposed to be locked down, and allegedly physically and sexually assaulted another person in custody for 16 minutes. An officer was seated “at the housing area desk facing the general direction of the cell” as this happened. The victim was not seen by medical staff until 18 hours after the incident.

In a related observation, the monitor said staff feel unsafe doing their job, and “would rather be disciplined than do their job as expected.”

Among the monitor’s other findings:

• Department staff used “head strikes” against detainees nearly 400 times in 2022; the Los Angeles jail system, by comparison, had 52 head strikes during that time.
• In recent months nearly 60 staffers have been suspended for using head strikes, chokeholds, body slams, kicks, and racial slurs against detainees.
• Serious incidents, from deaths to stabbings, are not being promptly documented and reported up the chain of command, including a death that was reported 33 hours after the incident occurred.
• The monitor said the Department of Correction failed to follow a court order from nearly two years ago to improve security, citing continued observations of unsecured doors, officers abandoning posts, and improperly secured chemical spray.

The next court hearing on the monitorship is August 10, when the judge could set a schedule for hearing motions on receivership.

Mary Lynne Werlwas, an attorney on the case from the Legal Aid Society who filed the original suit leading to the installation of the monitor, said in a statement: “Today the need for an independent authority over the jails is clearer than ever. As the court has ordered, we will be meeting with the City and the United States Attorney’s Office over the next few weeks to devise a solution to this decades-long failure.”

This story has been updated with additional comment from the mayor's office.