Reforms at Rikers labeled a success Bigger staff, better training get credit
federal grant in 2012 to help reform its approach to sexual abuse.
“[We said] ‘This is what we need to do. Now, how do we get there?’ ” Yelardy explained. “Together as a department — as a team — we came up with a plan.”
Correction officers, investigators, contractors, volunteers and civilian staff members have undergone thousands of hours of training — some of which was initially met with resistance, said Prechelle Shannon, the departmennt’s senior institution administrator.
“[I ask them] what if this was you? What if this was your family member? … What would you want the people in charge of their custody to do?’ ” Shannon said. “When you humanize the situation people start to look at it differently and they start to listen.”
The Department of Correction has long come under fire for how it handles sexual abuse and harassment complaints. Last year, a backlog of more than 1,200 cases drew ire from criminal justice advocates and members of the City Council.
That backlog has since been cleared, officials said — one of the many factors that made passing the federal audit possible.
“We advocated very aggressively for more staffing,” said Sarena Townsend, the deputy commissioner of investigation and trials. “We picked quality people, we trained them and then we strategically restructured.”
To clear the backlog, the department grew its investigation unit from nine investigators in April 2018 to 30 today. But clearing old cases while trying to keep up with new ones has proved challenging.
The DOC reported in August that it had only closed 19 of 271 assault cases from July through December 2018 and only 42 of the 205 cases from January to June of this year. An April audit conducted by the Board of Correction — a city oversight body that keeps tabs on the department — also found concerns regarding the timeliness and quality of sexual abuse investigations.
Kelly Grace Price, cofounder of the Close Rosies advocacy group, said the department has not met the city’s Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA, standards, which are more stringent than federal laws meant to curb jail violence.
The DOC “is trying to conflate the federal PREA law and the local PREA standards,” she said. Price noted that the department is touting its success in a federal audit when it should be adhering to the city’s own rules.
Yet for Yelardy, a former sex crimes and domestic violence prosecutor, the Rose M. Singer Center audit is one of many big changes that she’s seen in her 13 years with Correction.
“This department is maturing … There’s a lot of reform going on,” she said. “There’s always a new challenge we have to overcome.”