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Can Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards effectively lead the NYC Correction Department, an agency in crisis and in desperate need of immediate problem-solving triage, while simultaneously condemning Rikers Island jails and asserting they’re broken and inhumane, and believing the only solution is for Rikers jails to close as quickly as possible?
The chaos, dysfunction and soaring violence began with Bill de Blasio’s mayoralty in 2014. In order to prompt the closing of Rikers Island some politicians and advocates cunningly foreshadowed it as chaotic, violent and dysfunctional.
And with the help of political fecklessness and inept jail leadership it didn’t take long for de Blasio, members of his administration, NY politicians and advocates to act in ways to confirm that belief which soon caused their prophecy to be fulfilled.
Ironically, today many long for and aspire to attain the pre-2014 levels of jail violence.
The then mayor visited Rikers about three times in his eight years in office. He showed little interest and did not have a plan to successfully manage the jails.
On Sept. 27, 2021, with just three months left in his second term and after 8,000 assaults on correction officers, 950 slashings and stabbings and dozens of detainee deaths, de Blasio made his third and last visit to Rikers and announced, “I’ve put the plan in place to get us the hell out of here."
He expected praise while portraying himself as solving the problem when in reality, he was a significant part of creating the problem.
He stated, “I was upset when I took office. I was upset four years ago. I remain upset. This is a place that should have been shut down a long, long time ago."
Immediately after that self-sabotaging speech, the assaults, violence and deaths soared even higher for the remainder of his term and continued into the new mayoral administration, skyrocketing to 25 year highs. In the four years from 2022 through 2025, with an average detainee population of 5,650, the agency reported roughly 3,629 assaults on officers, 1,526 slashings and stabbings and 50 in custody deaths, including about 15 suicides and 10 overdoses.
For comparison, during the four years from 2006 through 2009 with an average detainee population of 13,700, there were 1,750 assaults on officers and 116 slashings and stabbings.
It appears de Blasio’s primary objective was to shutter Rikers. He allowed the jails to implode which resulted in disarray, violence and disorder during his two terms and he left the NYC Correction Department in shambles where it still remains four and a half years later.
Despite this catastrophic debacle, de Blasio’s Rikers philosophy and prophecies live on in the current administration.
Consequently, Rikers dwells in violence, the top civilian correction leadership remains ineffective and the federal district court has ordered NYC jails placed under a quasi-receivership which was right on cue for Stanley Richards in that it reduces his work load and significantly decreases his responsibility.
Further, if the remediation manager succeeds, then Richards also claims success. If the manager fails, Richards can claim plausible deniability.
On April 24 Richards declared, “What we’re focused on is our commitment that we’re doing everything in our power to close Rikers."
But Rikers jails will likely remain open for at least another three to six years. Meanwhile, the current administration is stuck in the same “rabbit hole” that de Blasio fell into where they are oblivious to the root causes of jail problems, ignore the detainee violence, enable lawlessness and believe the borough jails are the elixirs.
In August of 2023, Stanley Richards was part of a panel discussion in a forum presented by “Vital City” and other partners which asked the question, “Are NYC’s Jails Ungovernable?”
The panel was stacked exclusively with nine like-minded guests akin to having nine people on one side of a seesaw and nobody on the other.
Referring to 2021 when he was the first deputy commissioner under former Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi, Richards stated, “We specifically targeted elected officials and had them come out.”
“It was part of our strategy to try to close Rikers and transform the system.” He added that Rikers problems were decades in the making.
Clearly, Richards’ primary focus was and still is closing Rikers and not on dismantling detainee gangs, reducing violence or establishing control.
It’s common and reasonable to hold predecessors responsible for failures but it’s misleading to say that Rikers problems were decades in the making when they actually spawned 12 years ago when de Blasio became mayor.
Whether it was decades or 12 years, either way Richards’ statement places blame directly on de Blasio, his correction commissioners and himself.
Richards was second-in-command of the Correction Department during the last six months of de Blasio’s administration. In those six months under Richards’ watch the agency reported hundreds of assaults on correction officers, hundreds of detainee slashings and stabbings, thousands of detainees fights and assaults and eight detainee deaths including two suicides and two drug overdoses.
Will Richard’s accept any accountability for his failure in 2021?
Interestingly, Richards himself stated he had a “strategy” to close Rikers. Apparently, he didn’t have a strategy to reduce detainee violence or deaths.
More importantly, does Richards have a current strategy in place to reduce detainee violence and death?
Further, all the violence and death in 2021 occurred while the detainee population averaged less than five thousand, the lowest number of people in custody since 1949. In 1991 the population was 21,000.
Richards continues to exploit the progressive philosophy that Rikers Island itself is the problem, likely to deflect accountability, as he devotes his time, effort and the agency’s resources to give guided tours of the jails to politicians and visitors to convince them to help quickly close Rikers jails and also to personally attending a photo-op to sign the last beam placed 295 feet atop the new Brooklyn jail instead of focusing on prioritizing jail safety.
Since 2014, the City Council and correction commissioners have done little to provide a safe environment and successfully manage NYC jails. Instead, the quality of life for those incarcerated, non-uniformed employees and the uniformed force was made undeniably worse.
Some assert politicians and correction commissioners intentionally let the jails collapse to justify the closure of Rikers while others claim the commissioners were simply incompetent jail managers.
Nonetheless, City Hall never held any of the last five correction commissioners accountable for their failures.
The jails are unreasonably dangerous for all that live and work there. The non-uniformed staff, uniformed force and most people in custody want safe jails.
Rather, since 2014 politicians and correction commissioners have acted with deliberate indifference to the violence and danger. Still, they boastfully tout their perceived accomplishments despite leaving NYC jails rife with chaos, violence and dysfunction.
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