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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Mayor de Blasio came into office pledging to reform, among many other things, the conditions inside New York City jails. In 2014, he appointed Joseph Ponte, a seasoned correction official with a reputation as a reformer as correction commissioner to help them do that. The very next year 2015, a federal monitor was put in place to oversee reforms at Rikers Island after disturbing incidents of the use of force. That was also the year that Kalief Browder, a 22-year-old from The Bronx, took his own life after we he was held in solitary confinement on Rikers for two years on charges that he had merely stolen a backpack he was pleading not guilty to.

In 2017 Commissioner Ponte resigned after an investigation revealed that he misused city-issued vehicle privileges and listened in on confidential phone calls, and conditions at Rikers had not meaningfully improved under his tenure. In his place, de Blasio made one of Ponte's deputies, Cynthia Brann, correction Commissioner. She also pledged to rein in a culture of violence and mismanagement in city jails and started the process to end solitary confinement there.

The city's overall jail population did fall during these years, fewer people were arrested and charged for low-level offenses as part of larger criminal justice reforms. Yet, according to the federal monitor, the city's jails were still plagued with violence. This spring, the federal monitor's office released its 11th report issued since 2015. They found an alarming number of use of force incidents still, and terrible conditions for both incarcerated people and corrections officers alike. Commissioner Brann resigned shortly after the release of that report.

Following Brann's resignation, de Blasio named his most recent pick to the position of correction commissioner. Vincent Schiraldi, a choice that surprised and pleased many criminal justice reform advocates who have hailed this as the most progressive pick yet in this position, and he's one of our guests right now. Schiraldi most recently served as a senior researcher at the Columbia University School of Social Work and co-director of the Columbia Justice Lab. Before that, he was commissioner of the New York City Department of Probation, where he helped perform probation in the five boroughs. He's an advocate for ending the practice of incarcerating people on technical parole violations as well.

Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi does join us now along with his brand-new second in command, first Deputy Commissioner of Programs and Operations Stanley Richards, also a longtime reform advocate, as Executive Vice President of the Fortune Society, whose work focuses on support for the formerly incarcerated. Welcome back, Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi, and Deputy Commissioner Stanley Richards. Good morning.

Commissioner Schiraldi: Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having us on.

Deputy Commissioner Richards: Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Now you both acknowledge that the city's jail system is plagued with problems right now, and you heard that short history I just recounted. Why did you each even want this job? Commissioner Schiraldi, you first.

Commissioner Schiraldi: I think that the city's jails can be fixed. There are no intractable problems. We just got to all pull together to fix them. I think that this just needs to be a very big priority. I talked to Mayor de Blasio and the first deputy mayor about that, and they've delivered so far. They've prioritized the work that we're trying to do and it's making an early difference.

Brian Lehrer: Deputy Commissioner Richard, same question.

Deputy Commissioner Richards: Yes. For me, as a former incarcerated person and an advocate, pushing from the outside identifying what's wrong and offering solutions was one thing, but coming inside and really walking the talk around seeing the humanity of everybody, officers, people who are incarcerated, their families, and working to change a system is and was an opportunity I could not refuse.

Brian Lehrer: Your predecessors, as I was just laying out, at least under de Blasio have not been able to meaningfully affect reform despite desire and intent. Do you more blame them, commissioner, or some entrenched obstacles that they couldn't overcome?

Commissioner Schiraldi: No, we won't be able to fix it either. It's not going to be fixed at the Department of Correction level. It has to be fixed at the city level. This needs to be a priority and it's a hard thing to prioritize. I get it, why it's challenging to prioritize. Because most people don't ever go to Rikers Island. You're looking around a city like this and saying, "I got to fix a whole bunch of things." It doesn't end up very much on people's priority list.

The problems we have here are decades in the making, and they won't be fixed by Stanley or me or my team. They'll be fixed by the City of New York. As long as we understand that, then we'll be able to make a difference. If we don't understand that, and you can pick 10 million different corrections administrators, and it's never going to get better.

Brian Lehrer: What do you mean it would be fixed by the City of New York? Certain policy changes?

Commissioner Schiraldi: Policy changes, but also just prioritization. At the end of June, after my first month, I reached out to the first deputy mayor and said, "Oh, my goodness, these problems are really bad. I've been reading about it, but now I'm living it and we really need your help." I have to say I probably have met with him and some top-level city administrators like the head of OLR, of Labor Relations, and the head of the Office of City Management, I'm blanking on the actual title there but [unintelligible 00:05:57] and we've really problem-solved at a very high level. That's what it's going to take to fix this place. We need everybody rowing the boat, not just this commissioner or that deputy commissioner. It's not going to do it at that level.

Brian Lehrer: Deputy Commissioner, one of the key findings of the federal monitor's latest report was that the use of force rate in 2020 was actually 183% higher than the average use of force rate in 2016, which makes it sound like things are actually going backwards. Why do you think that was, and what's needed to turn that around?

Deputy Commissioner Richards: Well, we're working to change the conditions. We need to change the conditions that incarcerated people find themselves in. We need to change the conditions that our officers come to work and are working in. We're doing it in a number of ways. One is around bringing in programs, and really creating a young adult program, a program for people in our mental observation units, and a program that's for general population. What I've been saying is that I see you and I hear you. That applies to our officers and that applies to incarcerated people.

If we can engage people, and work with them from a place of our sense of hope for them about what could be different with them, we can create the conditions that make our jails safer, that have staff feeling good about when they comes to work they're going to go home and they're going to be safe. For our incarcerated people, while they get their cases adjudicated, they're in a place that's safe, that is respectful, and that centers all of our work on the humanity of those who interact with our particular institutions. We're working on reducing those use of forces by working on bringing in programs and seeing people and centering our work around the humanity of everybody.

Brian Lehrer: Now, listeners, any correction officers listening right now and want to call in, anyone listening as an incarcerated person at Rikers right now, or if you've been there in the past and want to call in, 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280. For the new corrections commissioner and deputy commissioner, how would you characterize the culture and current conditions where you work or live inside city jails? Do you think more staff would make your workload easier?

If you've been one of those people who hasn't been showing up or using all your sick days because you think conditions are so bad right now, call and tell us why and what you think you need? 646-435-7280. What do you want the new correction commissioner or deputy commissioner to understand about your work, or if you're incarcerated, your living conditions now and what could be done better from a managerial perspective? 646-435-7280. For people with first-hand relationships to the Rikers and other city jail situations, 646-435-7280 or Tweet @BrianLehrer.

Deputy Commissioner Richards, let me follow up on what you were just saying in your last answer. I saw the two of you say on TV this week on New York 1 with Errol Louis, that the path to better treatment for the incarcerated population runs through better treatment for the officers. That the incarcerated and the officers are often seen as having opposite interests, but it's not really true. Can you talk about how that's not a zero-sum game?

Deputy Commissioner Richards: Absolutely. The statement I made is that the health or pathology of those in authority are manifested in those with lesser authority. That's about we have to see our officers, we have to treat them fairly, we have to create the conditions that they feel valued. As a department, we're beginning to do that. We just announced a new training academy for our officers. For far too long officers have been calling for an academy that speaks to and values their skills and their gifts that they bring to the department. We're going to be doing that. We're going to do groundbreaking on an amazing training academy. We're going to be adding training elements that really centers our work, not around care custody and control, but around the humanity of people coming in.

There is a judiciary system that metes out accountability and punishment. Our time is to use the time that people come into our custody to provide them an opportunity to change their lives. I am an example of that. I spent over two and a half years on Rikers Island and I went upstate and I came home and I turned my life around because people saw the humanity in me and then I began to believe that my life could be something different. I think we have officers who are willing to do that. What we need to do as a department is to lift that up, see them, support them and create the conditions that allow them to live out that view of how people can change their lives.

Brian Lehrer: Commissioner Schiraldi, let me follow up on that just to keep it moving for time, but still to the same point. Last month the Corrections Officers Benevolent Association filed a lawsuit accusing officials in the department of creating an inhumane working environment. Their lawsuit alleges that staff shortages have led to staff getting sick, missing appointments, surging violence, and the deaths of a half dozen people behind bars. How much do you accept the premise of the lawsuit?

Commissioner Schiraldi: Stanley and I, and other people in our executive team have spent a lot of time meeting with staff, meeting with the unions, advocates to board of corrections, city council, state legislators, the monitor. I would say that if you think of this all as a big Venn diagram there's an enormous amount of overlap in the issues that people are raising about problems that we have here. I agree with an awful lot of what people are raising now. Whether it rises to the level of a violation that can be litigated about, I'm going to let the lawyers deal with, my job is to fix stuff, not to litigate stuff.

What we need to do I think here is set our standard for care and our standard for care both for our staff and the people who are incarcerated here needs to be, what would I want if my kid, my son or daughter worked there, or my son or daughter was incarcerated there and we have to strive to achieve that standard. When I think about this place and try to explain it to like people that have not been here, and never will be here, it's, imagine you're buying a new house. Doesn't have to be brand new, it's just a house that you didn't live in before ,and you're looking at it and some houses you look at it's like, oh, I need to do a little patchwork and painting in the living room ans the kids' room and then I can move in and some are a gut rental. This is a gut rental. We need to dramatically transform what's going on here, not incrementally fix this or that or the other thing and that's what it's going to take to make this place meet the standard, the my kids standard. If my kid was in it, what would I want? That's what it's going to take to make it be so that our staff and the people who are incarcerated here can feel like they're being treated with dignity and respect.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you one thing about that gut rental because one of the things that jumped out at me from what I read about the lawsuit by the staff is that New York city jails actually have the highest ratio of personnel to incarcerated persons of any jail we know of in the country. That number as I read it is approximately four officers for every three incarcerated people. That's seven times higher than the national average. If that's true, why would more staff be the answer to anything?

Commissioner Schiraldi: Yes, I'm not sure more staff are. We have 8,800 staff and 5,800 incarcerated people. We have about 1,600 people sick on any given day, which is about three to six times the rate of NYPD and fire department. Then we have another about 1,400 people medically modified, so they're unable to work in living units. Then we have about 2,200 people not coming to work and not calling in, so that's A-walling. That's a big chunk of the people we think we have available to work on any given day.That doesn't even include people out on vacation and family medical leave and military leave.

We got to get on top of that. We've started to get on top of that by having a high quality vendor now take a look at all our staff when they call out sick, Mount Sinai, and two-thirds decline in number of people calling out sick in the first week we did that. So bit by bit we're going to chip away at those unavailable populations. A the same time the monitor is getting a post analysis done, so I'll know exactly how many people we need to run this place at which point we're going to also simultaneously start bringing in new staff to the degree we need more staff. A bit of it is a human being problem. A bit of it is a math problem. We got to move all of those chess pieces across the board at the same time, we can't just pick one thing or another.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM HDN AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Net Kong and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey public radio. A few more minutes with the New York City Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi and Deputy Commissioner Stanley Richards on the massive reform undertaking that they've been describing that they're trying to institute right now. Here is Malik currently incarcerated calling in. Malik, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Malik: Hi. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Lehrer, Commissioner Schiraldi and Deputy Commissioner Richards. I think that your approach is a very adamant approach with regards to adding programs. However, it's not really going to change very much of the culture. I have been both on Rikers Island I am presently here in VCBC on The Boat. We are in one of the most daunting times in the history of these institutions.

I commend you both for taking on the position that you have. However, there are a number of things that I'd like to address but one in particular because of time constraints is that right now we have an overpopulated unit here on Boat, 49 to 50 men per unit. We do understand that the Delta variant is in fact growing, and there doesn't really seem to be any real proactive approach to how we're going to address and deal with this issue here.

I've talked to many of the medical staff here, and most of them the position is that they're not really testing because they don't really see any signs of the Delta variant here. I've always mentioned to them that, "Look, some of these guys may be asymptomatic, but we can rest assure that it's going to spread here." I'd like to know from you, what proactive approach are we going to take to address these issues? Cynthia Brann had a big problem with handling that well when she was in office. What are some of the other things that you can do to strengthen the culture between the detainees and the officers here both on Rikers Island and here on The Boat?

Commissioner Schiraldi: That's an excellent question. Thank you for that. There's really two things, culture and there's COVID, so maybe I'll take a shot at the COVID and maybe Stanley you can deal with the culture question. Does that sound good?

Deputy Commissioner Richards: Yes.

Commissioner Schiraldi: On COVID one thing I think, look, there's a lot of problems at the New York City Department of Correction and we haven't always done things right. I think we've gotten inadequate credit for what has been done on COVID. In most jurisdictions around the country, the infection rates in jails and prisons are four to five times higher than they are in the surrounding community.

After the first few months in which COVID really did tragically whack the department, and this is before I got here so I'm going to brag about something I didn't do, the Correctional Health Services and the Department of Correction really did get on top of it. The infection rate within the jail has been consistently lower than in the surrounding community. It is today about half of what it is in New York city within our jails. That is not true of jails around the country.

That being said, the Delta variant scares the hell out of me and all the rest of us and so we're laying a great many plans to address it. One is before the city even started giving incentives for incarcerated people to get vaccinated, the Correctional Health Services were giving people $25 incentives to get inoculated within Rikers. Now that's up to $100 for everybody. Everybody in the city and everybody within our facilities, the mayor has ordered and I believe, and I totally agree with him that by August 16th, every staff member will either have to be inoculated or they'll have to test every week.

We are doing a lot of things to encourage staff to get inoculated and we're starting to now get various different people to take messages from Dr. Faucii to [unintelligible 00:19:48] to others, we're asking more and more people to come on and take messages to encourage people to get inoculated, credible messengers from within the department. We're going to be having a Show the Love week during next month to encourage staff to get inoculated. We're doing a whole bunch of things to push that along and I hope that both incarcerated people and people who work for us get the vaccine and if they don't, get tested.

Brian Lehrer: Deputy Commissioner.

Deputy Commissioner Richards: What we're doing on the culture, as I said, part of what Vinnie and I have been doing, we've been going around to the facilities, walking in the facilities. We moved our office from Bulova right onto the Island, and so we want to be right there, we want to be present. We think setting the tone for how, as Vinnie has said, treat people like if it was your family member.

We're going to work really hard to make sure that that happens, make sure all the facility operations happen, make sure people are housed appropriately, make sure programs are in place and making sure that people feel heard and seen. That goes for incarcerated people and that goes for our officers. In fact, two weeks ago I told VCBC, spoke to many of the incarcerated people in various housing units. I'll be doing that as part of my frequent engagement with incarcerated people and with officers because culture starts with being able to see each other's humanity.

[crosstalk]

Commissioner Malik: Thank you, Malik. Thank you for that question. I appreciate that.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much. Call us again. Alicia in Queens, a nurse at Rikers Island, you're on WNYC with the commissioner and deputy commissioner. Hi Alicia?

Alicia: Hi, good morning. Yes, I'm a nurse that works on Rikers Island. I'm currently out of work. I'm the local [unintelligible 00:21:45] resident for Correctional Health. I would like to switch gears for a moment. I listened to you earlier speak of a toxic environment and the workplace at Rikers Island and the outer facilities has become a very toxic environment. It has become toxic for the staff, for the DOC staff, for the medical staff, for the civilian staff. I myself was a victim of assault last year. I've been out of work for a year due to that assault. Violence in the jails has increased at an alarming rate. This is violence against officers, civilians, medical staff and inmates. I have been on Rikers for over 19 years and have never seen the violence and complete chaos that I'm witnessing now.

DOC, although the numbers may say that they have a large amount in comparison to the patients or inmates, there's always shortages of staff, there's areas not being covered, there's services not being rendered because there's no officers to carry these duties out. There is no control by DOC of these jails. It's completely chaotic, it's becomes very dangerous. Nurses, doctors, civilians, officers themselves get physical threats and sometimes physical violence posed against them on a daily basis. It has become this toxic and dangerous environment and we need swift and effective action now. Some of us believe that-- [crosstalk] I'm sorry.

Brian Lehrer: Alicia, with your experience, what do you think effective action would be?

Alicia: I believe we've come to a point where DOC cannot manage this situation. I and many others believe outside agency help is needed. We've gone past giving DOC a chance. It's just two things that we need, outside people to come in and possibly make a change. This is an SOS, it's an emergency.

Brian Lehrer: Commissioner?

Commissioner Schiraldi: Alicia, I'm really sorry about the assault you experienced. Nobody should have to experience that and too many people do. I want to acknowledge that just to start off with. Alicia, Brian, I have a lot of conversations like this where I don't disagree with people's concerns. It's bad and we need to fix it. I don't know what an outside agency coming in would look like. I think the mayor brought me in because I was a change agent and I hope to do as much as I can to fix these problems as fast as I can.

It struck me and I didn't think the first two months of my time here would be so much about just getting people to come to work. I was hoping to get more into Malik's question of culture change in my first two months and start programs up and then incentivize people to behave well, because I think that's the best way to get good behavior out of people, but I got people working triples, so I just have to get human beings to come to work and bring more people on, but the faster way is to get people who are already employed by the department to come in. That's really what I spend a lot of time doing. Next comes fixing somebody's problems, but more people that are in the safer it will be for everybody. That's what I'm prioritizing right now- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Deputy commissioner, we have a minute left in the segment and deputy commissioner, I think you've been involved in the planning for closing Rikers Island and working instead out of borough-based jails. How much do you think changing what the physical plant is will solve these entrenched and very serious problems we've been talking about?

Commissioner Schiraldi: I think the borough-bases jails will help in the operation and management because it's built on technology and our facilities right now are really lock and key old facilities. I got to take you back to what Vinnie said, it's going to require a gut renovation because what we can't do is transplant what we have and what we've experienced over the decades into new borough-based facilities.

We need to be working two tracks, one about building out facilities that allow the department to move into the 21st century using technology to manage and engage folks. Two, we need to change the culture by doing gut renovations around building up training, engaging people, bringing in programs, and making sure that people are engaged in services so we have safety.

Brian: Alicia, thank you very much for your call. It's really important that people like you speak up, so thank you for doing so. New York City Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi and Deputy Commissioner Stanley Richards, thank you both for coming on with us and taking questions from the public and it sounds to my ear being pretty candid about the job you've got to do. Thank you.

Commissioner Schiraldi: Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having us on.

Deputy Commissioner Richards: Thanks you Brian.

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