N.Y.C. Jails Chief Is Hiding Dysfunction at Rikers, Federal Monitor Says

A year and a half into Louis A. Molina’s tenure as New York City correction commissioner, the federal monitor overseeing the Rikers Island jail complex on Thursday took direct aim at his leadership, saying that the violence there remained unabated and that officials were hiding information about it.

“The commitment to effective collaboration, as evidenced by the department’s recent performance, has deteriorated,” the monitor, Steve J. Martin, wrote in a report filed in federal district court. “The department’s approach to reform has recently become characterized by inaccuracies and a lack of transparency.”

“These problems have grave consequences for the prospect of reform and eliminating the imminent risk of harm faced by incarcerated individuals and staff,” he added.

In a statement issued in response to the monitor’s report, a Correction Department spokesman, Frank Dwyer, said the number of in-custody deaths and slashings and stabbings had declined under Mr. Molina’s leadership and accused Mr. Martin of appearing to “move the goal posts” by comparing those figures to prepandemic times.

“We remain focused on building upon the gains of the past 18 months and working every day in coordination with the monitor toward a safer and more humane environment for those who live and work on Rikers Island,” Mr. Dwyer said.

Thursday’s monitoring report was issued as Mr. Molina was facing intense pressure to turn around one of the worst crises to grip Rikers Island in decades. Appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in January 2022, Mr. Molina inherited chronic absenteeism that had peaked during the coronavirus pandemic and soaring rates of violence and neglect at the jail complex.

More recently, he has had to battle calls for a federal takeover of Rikers Island, avoiding that fate last year in part by promising in federal court to follow a plan to enact reforms.

As scrutiny of his department has intensified, Mr. Molina has taken steps that limit the public release of potentially damaging information, revoking a jails oversight panel’s unrestricted access to video footage from Rikers Island and reversing his predecessor’s policy of notifying the public when deaths occur in custody.

In a report last month, the federal monitor detailed five “serious and disturbing” instances over a two-week period this spring in which detainees were injured or fell ill. The events, Mr. Martin wrote, were not appropriately reported by jail staff and were unknown to his team until reporters asked about them.

The clawing back of information from the public and failure to report deaths and serious injuries have drawn criticism, including from the City Council speaker, Adrienne Adams, who said in a statement last week that the council was considering “legislative solutions to address this administration’s backtracking on transparency and undermining of oversight.”

In a news conference after touring the Rikers Island facilities on Wednesday, Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, and Brad Lander, the comptroller, said that they would formally call for a federal takeover of the complex.

Thursday’s monitoring report sounded an even more urgent alarm than the one issued in May, concluding that “the current state of affairs in the jails remains alarming, not just for the rampant violence and frequency with which force is used, but also because of regression in the department’s management.”

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Molina defended his leadership of the department during a difficult time and pushed back against those who have questioned his decisions to limit the public release of certain information.

“There’s not this hiding of information or anything like that,” Mr. Molina said, while acknowledging that he had taken some steps to avoid “an incorrect narrative of what was going on here to try to move the department forward.”

He added that he was fully cooperating with oversight efforts.

“I think we’re at a point where individuals want to curate their own fact pattern to reach the conclusion that they would like the public to have,” Mr. Molina said.

A monitor’s report issued shortly after Mr. Molina took over made clear the challenges he was facing. In March 2022, Mr. Martin wrote that violent incidents “have become normalized and have seemingly lost their power to instill a sense of urgency among those with the power to make change,” adding in bold text that the high rates of violence and use of force by correction officers “are not typical, they are not expected, they are not normal.”

Mr. Molina insisted in the interview on Wednesday that he could enact the reforms needed to make Rikers Island safer and more functional. He said his past experience helping to steer the Westchester County Jail in New York out of federal oversight in 2020 made him uniquely suited to turn Rikers Island around.

“I think we have a long way to go, but I think we’ve made great strides,” he said. “Because the numbers don’t lie, they are what they are — they may not tell the whole story, but they’re, I think, a good barometer.”

Among the positive indicators, Mr. Molina said, were a recent decline in chronic absenteeism among jail guards and progress in processing a backlog of correction officer disciplinary cases.

“Over the last almost 18 months now, I have signed off on the adjudication of over 3,000 disciplinary cases,” he said, although the monitor has noted that many cases were closed without being investigated.

Still, citing the findings of the monitor’s recent reports, advocates for people detained at Rikers Island were renewing their calls for a federal judge to strip Mr. Molina of control over the Correction Department and appoint a receiver to oversee the jails.

They said that Mr. Molina has obstructed the jail’s oversight bodies’ ability to know what’s happening on the inside, inflaming tensions and causing concern that problems were being hidden.

“This administration has not only wrought horrific levels of violence in the jails, but is increasingly authoritarian in seeking to shield its abuses from judicial and public oversight,” Mary Lynne Werlwas, director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society, said in a statement on Thursday, adding that reforming the jails should be “placed in the hands of a trustworthy, independent entity that can do what the Department of Correction is unwilling or unable to do.”

The jails fell under federal oversight in 2015 after a class-action lawsuit against the Correction Department regarding the frequent use of excessive force. The lawsuit resulted in a consent judgment, and Mr. Martin was appointed to issue periodic reports on violence within the facilities.

Mr. Molina has not faced criticism just over the sharing of information on deaths and injuries. His decision to cut services for detainees also drew questions. In May, he announced that in response to a City Hall order requiring agencies to slash their budgets, he would eliminate contracts with five nonprofit organizations that provide incarcerated people with group therapy and job training sessions, among other things.

The programs might have helped reduce violence in the jails, said JoAnne Page, president of one of the service providers, the Fortune Society.

“It’s a jail-management truism that you don’t want people idle, because that creates a ramp up in violence,” Ms. Page said.

Following the monitor’s report in May, the judge presiding over the federal case ordered the Corrections Department and other parties to the suit to appear in Federal District Court in Manhattan next week.

In her order, the judge, Laura T. Swain, wrote that the incidents described in the monitor’s report “have highlighted dangerous conditions and unsafe practices, as well as grave concerns related to transparency and the reporting of information to the monitoring team.”

The hearing was set to take place on Tuesday.

Jan Ransom contributed reporting.