Who’s in charge of Rikers?

A major problem for any organization is when confusion exists as to who’s in charge.

It appears recently appointed correction commissioner Stanley Richards isn’t ready to acknowledge that newly named Nunez remediation manager Nick Deml is in charge of the NYC Correction Department.

The agency’s table of organization is clearly defined. Federal district court Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain has taken most of the control of the jails away from the city.

Deml has been appointed by Judge Swain to be the so-called remediation manager and has been given specific powers and authority to eliminate constitutional violations and gain compliance with the Nunez consent decrees.

Last week Richards was interviewed on NY1 and PIX11 news outlets. The journalists conducting the interviews were outstanding and asked relevant questions, although Richards dodged some.

Despite that, based on Richard’s answers some viewers might think that the distribution of authority by the Court to Richards and Deml is equal.

It isn’t.

NY1’s Courtney Gross described the leadership structure as “confusing” and asked Richards, who is the “real boss” and where does the buck stop?

Richards didn’t answer the question. Instead his response was that he will work in partnership with the remediation manager.

Gross pushed back, asking but what happens when you disagree? Is Nick Deml’s word the final word? Richards responded, “Nick and I will work hand-in-hand, if we have differences in strategies we will work those differences out."

On PIX11, Dan Mannarino asked Richards who makes the decisions at the end of the day for Rikers Island? Referring to manager Nick Deml, Richards stated “his work is to address the 18 contempt orders” and “my focus is making sure our jails are safe." “He reports to the judge and I report to the mayor.”

Judge Swain’s ruling grants the following authority to the remediation manager including, but not limited to, enacting or changing DOC policy, directing personnel actions, assigning and deploying staff and reviewing, investigating and taking disciplinary action.

NYC’s jails have been placed under a quasi-receivership led by a remediation manager and any resistance or non-compliance with the Court’s order by the DOC commissioner could result in the Court implementing a full receivership with total control over the department.

In other words Richards has no choice but to work “in partnership” with the manager.

Notwithstanding, during the interviews Richards didn’t even concede that the manager has more authority than him nor did he state that the manager has the final say over many DOC issues. I submit Deml’s power and authority applies to most of DOC’s duties and responsibilities.

I assure you Judge Swain’s ruling is not ambiguous. Pursuant to her May 2025 opinion and order the manager has the unequivocal authority over all aspects of DOC pertaining to the Nunez consent decrees.

According to Swain’s 77 page ruling, the powers of the remediation manager “include authority over DOC’s rules, policies, and personnel, as detailed below, including all powers of the Commissioner in such areas, as well as the direct ability to hire and manage senior staff responsible for these areas.”

In addition, the manager “may delegate elements of this authority to the Commissioner from time to time” at the manager’s discretion. “To the extent the Commissioner is overseeing matters within the Remediation Manager’s remit, the Commissioner shall answer to the Nunez Remediation Manager, who will continue to be accountable only to the Court”.

“The Nunez Remediation Manager shall have the authority to direct the Commissioner to take steps that the Nunez Remediation Manager deems necessary to comply with the requirements of the Contempt Provisions."

“The commissioner shall retain all of Commissioner’s authority in areas not implicated by the Contempt Provisions."

For the most part, the commissioner answers to the manager but the manager answers only to the Court. And although the commissioner has some of what I would describe as relatively insignificant independent authority outside the manager’s purview, generally speaking the manager is in charge of NYC jails.

Gross asked Richards how he would “finally fix Rikers Island." He answered, “that’s the seed plant at work, it’s looking at all those policies and updating them, making sure that we’re doing training that is appropriate for the people that we have detained today, that is making sure that we have posts covered, making sure that we’re modernizing our systems, I think the department right now relies too heavily too much on paper and we need to get the department into the 21st century."

Richard’s answer gave no specific strategy, no clear solutions and no mention of what training requires revision or what policies need updating. His response was largely conceptual and theoretical.

Many policies need to be completely overhauled not simply updated, specifically the restrictive housing policy that has failed since the elimination of punitive segregation and the lack of any effective policy that holds detainees accountable for rule violations.

Training is deficient, for example, in 2021-2022 there were about 12 detainee suicides. Richards was the first deputy commissioner in the second half of 2021. At that time and still today suicide prevention training consists of an annual 45 minute online session.

I contend it must be at least a minimum yearly requirement of eight hours of in person training conducted by psychologists and subject matter experts, regardless of the cost.

Further, in 2021 under Richards’ leadership as first deputy commissioner, the jails were rife with detainee lawlessness and many posts were unmanned as detainee violence soared.

Now the city will pay three top officials; namely, the federal monitor, the remediation manager and the correction commissioner and their teams close to 10 million dollars a year to do the same work than a single correction commissioner and team did prior to 2014 that resulted in safer jails and better management and significantly less detainee violence, assaults on officers and uses of force with no chaos and dysfunction.

Although the powers that be have miserably failed to manage the jails over the last decade, somehow that reality hasn’t changed their approach to jail management or their strategy. Furthermore, the city council and DOC’s top leaders still pass the buck and refuse to take responsibility.

DOC’s recent past and its present state are harbingers of more violence and bloodshed to come. The past is being held hostage by the present which controls the tools and resources that can uplift, ameliorate and alter the course of DOC’s future.

And if you listen closely in between the cacophony of hollering, violent disturbances, incessant banging on cell doors, jail alarms, blaring DOC radios and ambulance sirens you will hear the future begging for someone to intervene as it trembles in silence in anticipation of its own arrival.