Storming Rikers’ Bastille

According to a recent New York Times article, the newly appointed commissioner of the city’s Department of Correction, Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, stated a federal takeover is not a “foregone conclusion.”

“To avoid losing control of the jail, she said she would use the relationship she had developed with the monitor, Steve J. Martin,” The Times reported.

The city does not want to lose control of Rikers to a receiver and the only way to keep control is to capitulate to the monitor.

There is no disputing that since Martin was appointed to oversee conditions in NYC jails violence and death has bloomed and flourished before our eyes like the spring grass. The 2,000 slashings and scores of detainee deaths were not insidious. The monitor, city politicians and DOC commissioners were all aware of the carnage yet continued on the same destructive path.

A federal receivership is rare and only issued by the court as a last resort. There is little talk of a federal receiver by the monitor as long as the DOC commissioners implement his agenda. We saw that under the last four commissioners.

In this immured saga, Steve Martin has become the de facto commissioner. He is the “man behind the curtain.”

If you do what he has consistently called for in his reports to the federal judge and replace uniformed bosses with civilians from outside the agency, in addition to aggressive discipline and punishment of correction officers and captains, you can remain as the commissioner even though that management approach has proven to be an abysmal failure.

The jails must be made safe for the incarcerated and correction officers.

If DOC proceeds with this same approach, the deaths and violence will continue and the new commissioner will again only be the proxy of the monitor.

Marc Bullaro