In May 2023, the Adams administration announced that it would save $17 million by not renewing five contracts with nonprofits that provided programs to help people behind bars stay off drugs, find housing, and learn job skills.
Correction officers and some additional civilian staffers would seamlessly take over various classes, Francis Torres, who served as the Department of Correction’s deputy commissioner of the Division of Programs and Community Partnerships, testified to the City Council at the time.
“We are developing a transitional plan, to make sure the 69 counselors are actually in place to assume the new responsibilities,” she testified.
That never happened.
Jail officials have never been able to fully fill those roles and there are currently 32 vacancies, Nell McCarty, DOC’s current deputy commissioner of programs and community partnerships, testified at a City Council budget hearing Friday.
As a result, there were 4,100 fewer group “facilitation sessions” for detainees over the first four months of fiscal year 2024 compared to the same period the prior year, according to the Mayor’s Management Report. There was also a 3,460 drop in the number of one-on-one sessions over that same period.
As of friday there are approximately 6,900 people in DOC custody, officials said.
According to the city’s Administrative Code, the correction commissioner “shall offer to all individuals incarcerated for more than 10 days a minimum of five hours per day of individual programming or education, excluding weekends and holidays.”
That rarely, if ever, happens, according to detainees and advocates.
“I’m concerned the DOC is not meeting the minimum hours of programming due to DOC choosing to run programs in-house while they’re showing high vacancy staffing rates,” said Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn), chair of the Council’s Committee on Criminal Justice.
‘Eager to Return’
McCarty conceded that in-sourcing the work “did present some challenges” especially for one-on-one instruction.
“What I would like to highlight, though, is that what we have seen in the first quarter of fiscal year 25 is a 44% increase of group programming compared to last year at the same time,” she testified. “And so what that says to me is that we are starting to stabilize our services.”
Still, nearly two years later, the DOC posted in January that it was once again seeking outside providers to run programs for detainees. The department has earmarked $13 million to pay for those four contracts, McCarty told the Council.
The new deals “are not a replacement of the prior contracts,” she said, noting “they’re covering different topics, and this was gathered through focus groups and surveys with people in custody to identify what services they were seeking additional support with.”
People wait in line to visit loved ones detained on Rikers Island, Feb. 5, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The four requests-for-proposals are titled: Substance Misuse, Trauma Informed Care Services, Supplemental Education, and Transition Planning and Transportation.
Bids were due by Feb. 18, and DOC officials are currently reviewing the applications and decisions are expected soon, according to jail insiders.
At least one of the nonprofits cut out in 2023 is looking to get back on Rikers.
“Osborne is beyond eager to return to Rikers providing the level of extensive programming we offered for years to individuals detained there,” said Tanya Krupat, vice president of policy and advocacy for the Osborne Association, a nonprofit that works with detainees and formerly incarcerated.
The other groups slashed in 2023 were: Fortune Society, SCO Family of Services, Greenhope Services for Women and Fedcap Rehabilitation Services.
They all had spent years contracting with the city to offer an array of courses behind bars. Some of the courses were taught by formerly incarcerated people who’d turned their lives around, according to the nonprofits.
Not Meeting Mandatory Time
As for the five hours of programming, one Rikers detainee locked up for the past year said he never gets that much.
“Hell no!” the incarcerated man, who asked his name be withheld, told THE CITY via a phone interview on Friday.
He typically receives an hour of group counselling and another for art therapy several days each week inside his housing unit in the Otis Bantum Correctional Center, he said, spending most of his timeas a suicide prevention aid watching high-risk detainees with mental health diagnosis.
Councilmember Sandy Nurse chairs hearing with Department of Correction officials, Jan. 30, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Other detainees, he added, watch television and some buy shows and movies to watch on their department-issued tablets.
During a Council hearing last May, DOC’s Torres admitted the department wasn’t offering the mandatory hours of programming.
“We’ve had challenges,” Torres testified. “I’m not going to tell you our programming has not been impacted, it has been impacted.”
Despite the drop in programming, Torres last March was promoted to first deputy commissioner making her the first Hispanic woman to serve in that role, according to the DOC.
In February, Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie quietly asked two of the nonprofits DOC had cut out to come back on a pro-bono basis, the Queens Eagle reported.
Tough Job
Correction officials are also struggling to recruit and retain correction officers with approximately 1,100 uniformed openings, Commissioner Maginley-Liddie told the Council Friday.
The DOC currently employees 6,000 uniformed officers, a 20% drop from January 2022, she said.
Additionally, nearly 250 members are presently eligible to retire and 450 more will become eligible by the end of the year, the commissioner testified.
“Recruitment and retention of law enforcement staff has been a challenge nationally, and the reality is that the department’s recruitment classes are not keeping up with levels of attrition,” she said.
The number of officers needed to safely run Rikers has long been in dispute, with DOC officials and unions representing uniformed staff arguing for additional hires for years.
Jail advocates and some experts, on the other hand, contend that the DOC has a higher detainee-to-staff ratio than any other lockup in the nation.
Steve Martin, a court appointed monitor overseeing the department, said the DOC relies too heavily on overtime because of an ongoing staff shortage.
“Facilities attempt to work around endemic staff shortages by using overtime,” he wrote in November 2023, “but too often, sufficient staff resources are not available to deliver mandated services, leading to high levels of stress, frustration, and violence among people in custody.”
ICE Talks
Meanwhile, Commissioner Maginley-Liddie told the Council she has talked to people in City Hall about Mayor Eric Adams plan to sign an executive order to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to operate on Rikers Island, as it had until a decade ago when a “sanctuary city” law forbade cooperation.
“We’ve had conversations but I’ve not seen an executive order,” she said without offering further details, noting it would be handled by the city’s Law Department.
Last month Adams announced the proposed roll back of the city’s sanctuary laws three days after the President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice moved to drop corruption charges against Adams, citing the need for his help on immigration enforcement.
“Has there been a conversation about whether the mayor faces a conflict of interest in his ability to legally sign this executive order?” asked Councilmember Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) on Friday.
Jail officials said they never talked about that.
“Neither myself or the commissioner have had that conversation,” said James Conroy , DOC’s deputy commissioner of legal matters/general counsel.
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The post Rikers Now Looks to Bring Back Nonprofits After Kicking Them Off Island appeared first on THE CITY – NYC News.
