Transparency is key to accountability on Rikers Island

My office has a new tool to help hold DOC accountable. Dear New Yorkers, What we can’t see, we can’t fix. Years of increasingly alarming headlines have made clear that management problems at the Department of Correction have snowballed into a humanitarian crisis. Despite spending as much as half a million dollars per person per year to incarcerate New Yorkers, people are not getting basic medical attention and violence has accelerated. But it’s been hard to get information about what exactly is going on, and going wrong, in NYC’s jails. Last week my office unveiled [a DOC dashboard]( to help the public see and track metrics like the growing jail population, violent incidents, staffing shortages, court appearances, and missed medical appointments. Our goal is to bring the transparency that is essential for both accountability and change. Rikers Island has been under a Consent Decree and federal monitoring since November 2015, but violent conditions for people on both sides of the bars persist. One of the key issues recently has been a staffing management crisis, as rates of sick leave use spiked during the pandemic and remain twice as high as before. As noted in the monitor’s April 2022 Report, “the level of dysfunction within the Department’s staffing framework is unmatched by any jurisdiction with which the Monitoring Team has had experienced.” Photo courtesy NYC Comptroller's Office This morning, I conducted a surprise visit to Rikers Island to see firsthand the conditions on the ground. Accompanied by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Council Member Carlina Rivera, we showed up unannounced and what we found only reaffirmed the importance of our mission to bring accountability and change to Rikers Island and the entire Department of Correction. Over the past year since my last visit, the Department of Corrections has made real improvements in the intake process and in punitive segregation, where most of the detainees we spoke to were receiving seven to ten hours out of their cells, in compliance with State law. But we still observed a number of individuals in "involuntary protective custody" — a form of solitary confinement that the UN has declared torture. I talked to one man who’s been in a small holding cell for 48 hours without a bed or a blanket awaiting transfer to a unit with mental health observation because all of those units are full — since more than half the population at Rikers has some mental health needs. Perhaps most wrenching was a man who has been on Rikers awaiting trial for eight years, spending the majority of his detention in the infirmary. Despite record spending and increased scrutiny, the Department of Correction is still failing in its basic obligations to the human beings in our government’s custody. The Department of Correction's budget for FY 23 is more than $1.2 billion. The full cost of incarcerating one person for one year is nearly four times the amount spent 10 years ago. Over the same period, as crime rates fell and reforms brought the jail population down, the ratio of staff to incarcerated people grew. Indicators of violence have gone up, while the department’s ability to provide crucial health and social services to people in custody has deteriorated. Here’s some of the data that our dashboard shows: - As of the beginning of August 2022, the jail population stood at 5,708—with 119 more people in custody than in July, but 1,600 fewer people detained compared to August 2019. - The average share of staff out sick per day is 12%, down from 13% in June. - Adjusted for the jail population, the rate of use of force, including incidents and allegations, rose from 28.27 to 32.69 per 100 (as of the most recent quarter). - The share of detained people making court appearances each day is at 9%, returning to pre-pandemic levels after dipping to a low of 2% in April 2020. - The average length of detention is now 125 days for the calendar year-to-date (January-July 2022), up from 79 for the same period in 2019. [View the full DOC Dashboard here]( A dozen people have already died this year in the custody of our correctional system. Getting arrested in New York City should not be a death sentence. As James {NAME} said, ‘Not everything that’s faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it’s faced.’ Our city cannot look away from this crisis. Bringing transparency to DOC’s operations is one step in facing it. In progress, Brad [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Link]( [New York City Comptroller's Office]( Copyright © 2022 New York City Comptroller's Office, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 1 Centre Street, New York, NY 10007 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](.