Received wisdom on Rikers

In a 12 page letter filed this week, Rikers Federal Monitor Steve Martin gave some rare positive news in the never-ending fiasco that is the Department of Correction’s handling of the offshore jail: newly appointed Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie has responded forcefully to the court’s finding of contempt against the city, turning the DOC form antagonistic and evasive to communicative and collaborative with the monitor’s office.

Manhattan Judge Laura Taylor Swain agrees and lifted the contempt order, showing how important it is to have a culture of responsibility and transparency emanate from the very top of the departmental structure for a change.

We wouldn’t and couldn’t have expected any commissioner, including Maginley-Liddie’s predecessor, Lou Molina, to fully turn around the massive ship that is Rikers and its decades of violence and negligence. We could, however, fully expect Molina to adopt a leadership position that prioritized compliance with the court’s orders and the monitor’s recommendations as opposed to endeavoring to keep the union happy and his administration shielded from scrutiny.

That he instead presided over a department that attempted to shut out its overseers and evade things like reporting medical episodes and deaths is a marker not just of the lack of prioritization of transparency, but by extension an unseriousness about improving outcomes to the point that they wouldn’t be embarrassing.

All that said, and while we certainly commend Maginley-Liddie for understanding her role as stewarding the institution for the benefit of both staff and the detainee population in her care, that’s not case closed on Rikers. None of this coordination changes anything about the dynamics on the ground, even if the department is now more open about its shortcomings and receptive to feedback.

The status reports on the situation on the ground continue to show unacceptable levels of violence and staff recalcitrance, and it is an open question whether a commissioner from within this structure and with their existing powers can even meaningfully bring it under control.

Even if Maginley-Liddie has been a better commissioner already than her predecessor (who, it should be noted, she served under as first deputy commissioner), we hope she’s the last commissioner for some time.

Instead, the department should be led — or rather wrangled — by an outsider, someone empowered by a federal court to fully supersede the rotten structure and culture of the department and liberally exercise power to force change and accountability for complying with that change.

The union and staff will kick and scream and launch smear campaigns, horrified as they’ll be to face the prospect of actual repercussions for running a dangerous and unconstitutional system while being MIA on the job or hanging out at illicit on-premises clubhouses.

These protestations should be taken as the self-interested theater they are. There’s no real defense of the system as it exists, nor is there much reason to believe that the department can right itself. The problems are too deep, having festered for decades.

Promises of reform and change have been broken again and again, and the consequences are all too real, measured in deaths and injuries and, it should be remembered, the ongoing violation of our constitutional obligations. The Department of Justice is seeking a receiver. Judge Swain should agree.