Asserting control at Rikers Island jails is imperative

Marc Bullaro is a retired NYC DOC assistant deputy warden.

President Harry Truman espoused the motto “The Buck Stops Here,” indicating it was he who was ultimately responsible for his decisions and the outcomes. He displayed those words on his desk on a sign that was made at a federal reformatory.

But at the NYC Correction Department, the buck is launched daily from DOC’s Bulova Building headquarters to Rikers Island jails like a precision guided missile, and it always finds a scapegoat.

Passing the buck isn’t effective leadership and doesn’t yield success but it does present a sacrificial offering to the overseers that guarantees accolades and self-survival, at least temporarily.

Still, correction commissioners and the federal monitor, Steve Martin, continue to pass the buck, apparently believing they could discipline their way out of this crisis by holding the uniformed force accountable for policy failures.

It now appears the chief district judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Laura Taylor Swain, who presides over the Nunez consent decree, instituted in 2016 to address persistent violence inside the jails, is no longer convinced.

Swain on Monday ordered city jails placed under a receiver, also known as an independent manager, who will have full control of the jails and she issued a deadline of Aug. 29 for city officials and advocates to recommend potential candidates who will have three years to improve conditions, “with safety as the first goal.”

For the last decade it appeared safety was not a priority. Since 2015 there have been about 75 in-custody deaths, more than 12 suicides, 9,000 assaults on staff, 2,200 slashings and stabbings, 100,000 detainee infractions for fight/assault and 60,000 uses of force.

Instead of safety, the priority seemed to be to impose excessive discipline against correction officers. That quickly became the norm in an agency where some correction commissioners ostensibly tolerated detainee lawlessness and capitulated to violent detainee gangs that are organized and structured under a clear hierarchy. The gangs exerted their control by oppressing and exploiting the incarcerated population and now are the de facto authority in jail.

This dysfunctional marriage between draconian staff punishment and minimal detainee accountability produced two offspring behind bars, named Anarchy and Bedlam. And despite being less than 10 years old, both are uncontrollable, incorrigible and wreak havoc.

Is it a coincidence that this jailhouse nosedive began in 2015 the same year that the federal monitor was appointed by the federal District Court pursuant to the Nunez consent decree and the same year that the first of many Mayday distress calls issued by correction officers, captains, assistant deputy wardens and jail union officials were disregarded by politicians and DOC commissioners?

City jails are far from reformed. They are the worst they’ve been in 30 years. But the monitor and the monitoring team continue to financially benefit from DOC’s downfall. They have billed NYC taxpayers more than $22 million.

On April 29 the Queens Daily Eagle reported that former Idaho Sheriff Gary Raney, “a jail expert hired by the city [said] that current Department of Correction Commissioner Lynette Maginley-Liddie should remain in charge of the violent jail complex.” Rainey believed that if Swain appointed a receiver to manage Rikers jails, there would be “no faster path to substantial compliance than the leadership structure that is in place now.”

Because Rikers Island is sui generis, I question the relevancy and applicability of Raney’s experience in Idaho as juxtaposed to NYC. Moreover, I question Raney’s “expert” opinion given DOC is nowhere near substantial compliance concerning the curtailing of detainee violence or reductions in uses of force, even though the department is in full compliance regarding increased staff discipline and accountability. Incidentally, curtailing detainee violence would automatically reduce uses of force.

I appeal to Swain to consider meeting with a medley of DOC’s uniformed force who work behind the gates day after day surrounded and overwhelmed by detainee lawlessness and violence while hanging onto a sliver of hope for a breakthrough only for that hope to be immediately lost at the beginning of their next tour. Staff morale has reached its nadir.

In order for a receiver to have a chance at success they must put safety first while simultaneously eliminating constitutional violations. The receiver cannot double down on the same failures of the last decade. Politicians, policy makers and DOC commissioners were repeatedly warned by uniformed staff and jail unions of the danger posed and like the mayor in the movie “Jaws,” who decided to allow beachgoers in the water, they ignored the danger.

If the receiver doesn’t make safety and regaining control of the jails a priority, when the black box is discovered the cause of DOC’s crash will be confirmed as pilot error attributed to the City Council, the federal monitor, the last four correction commissioners and the receiver. And the results of DOC’s autopsy will conclude the manner of death to be self-inflicted wounds ascribed to policies that were ineffective and counterproductive to safety.

For a decade, the purported solutions to this jail crisis failed because, standing alone, they were mostly theoretical remedies.

The main problem is that DOC lost control of the jails because its authority was diminished and the tools necessary to achieve successful management of the jails were taken away. Now the majority of its resources and efforts are geared to combating detainee lawlessness instead of insuring detainee care.

Consequently, to escape from this rabbit hole the receiver must first regain control of the jails by asserting legal authority and implementing policies that are conducive to safety for both detainees and DOC staff, hold detainees accountable for their rule violations and conduct RICO prosecutions against gang members that traffic drugs, commit violence and extort fellow detainees all in furtherance of their criminal enterprise. DOC must inundate the jails with voluntary educational, vocational, spiritual and inner developmental programs.

Without DOC in control of the jails, expect anarchy and bedlam to remain and detainee gang violence and assaults on staff to continue. Establish control and the jails will be safer, constitutional violations can be eliminated and reform will become attainable and viable.