Rikers violence monitor suggests limited court action on NYC jails, doesn’t mention federal takeover

A federal monitor tracking the use of force on Rikers Island and other city jails said that a limited series of court orders allowing the city to fix some nagging problems at the jails may be warranted — but that the evidence does not support their takeover by a federal receiver.

Federal monitor Steve Martin walked a very careful line in his report, saying that Manhattan Federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain could give the city the power to strip away roadblocks to improving Correction Department operations.

“If it were simply a matter of requiring certain things to occur via a regulation or court order, the department’s problems would have been resolved many years ago,” Martin’s monitoring team wrote.

“That said, there are likely certain legal and/or regulatory barriers that may need to be considered by the court for possible intervention.”

Martin noted in his report that the Correction commissioner does not have the power to pick wardens from outside the agency to run individual jails on Rikers Island and elsewhere — something he has mentioned a number of times in the past.

Critics have complained that the six-year-old Nunez consent decree on jail violence — in which Martin is the monitor and Swain is presiding over as judge — has not resulted in significant change to jail operations through a period buffeted by the pandemic, multiple commissioners, and a change in mayoral administration.

In the report, Martin seemed to throw his support behind Correction Commissioner Louis Molina and his aides.

“This leadership team has demonstrated a strong understanding of the issues and what work must be prioritized,” he wrote. “The leadership team has initiated concrete and tangible solutions for how to move reform forward.”

Martin wrote that decades of mismanagement requires “nearly every facet of jails’ operations needs to be dismantled” and rebuilt. The problem is not policy, rules and regulations, he wrote. “[C]hanges in practice are what is needed,” the report says.

“At its core, successful reform will require an all-encompassing cultural and behavioral change among thousands of staff for whom poor practice has been embedded and normalized for decades,” Martin wrote.

Earlier this year, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office threatened to back receivership if substantial change did not occur. Swain has scheduled a hearing in November where the matter of a possible receivership will likely be discussed.

Martin’s comments don’t seem to offer much support for receivership. In fact, the word “receiver” doesn’t appear in the entire 102-page document.

In general, Martin said, the city’s jails remain in crisis.

“The conditions in the jails remain dangerously unsafe and the monitoring team remains gravely concerned about the alarming number of in-custody deaths, violence among people in custody, lack of an effective restrictive housing model, and various facets of the department’s use of force practices and operational practices,” he wrote.

Sixteen people died of illness or injury suffered in the jails in 2021, followed by 17 so far this year.