Days after Mayor Eric Adams took office, his hand-picked correction commissioner ousted the official overseeing thousands of backlogged use-of-force investigations inside the city jail system — a move cheered by correction officer unions that long viewed her as overly aggressive.

More than four years later, that same investigator, Sarena Townsend, is returning to the Department of Correction with the backing of the federal court’s remediation manager who has tapped her to help overhaul the agency’s maligned disciplinary system, THE CITY has learned.

Under a new organizational structure laid out in a recent court filing, remediation manager Nicholas Deml will have final authority over the unit, which inherits what officials have described as the nation’s largest jail use-of-force investigative caseload. 

The unit will probe allegations of officer and supervisor misconduct and make decisions on how they should be potentially disciplined. DOC Commissioner Stanley Richards and Deml will share final authority.

The hiring signals Deml intends to take an aggressive approach toward labor groups as he seeks to force long-stalled reforms at the city jails.

Liz Glazer, who ran the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice during the de Blasio administration, hailed the appointment.  

“She’s aces,” said Glazer, who now operates Vital City, a nonprofit website and magazine focused on civic well-being. 

Townsend “knows the jails inside and out” and “has the drive and judgment to fix what’s broken,” she added. 

Since leaving city government, Townsend has built a private law practice representing, among others, correction officers and supervisors suing the department or facing internal charges for alleged misconduct.

It is unclear how those pending cases will proceed. 

“I regrettably can’t comment,” Townsend told THE CITY. 

Representatives for the city’s DOC did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Her salary and benefit package also remains a mystery. Federal Judge Laura Swain, who oversees the remediation manager, has refused to disclose how much Deml and his team will be compensated. 

For years, the federal monitor overseeing the jails has warned that investigators routinely downplayed or mishandled staff misconduct cases, even when incidents were captured on body-worn cameras.

In one December incident detailed in a recent monitoring report, an officer could be heard yelling “Don’t leave marks” as staff tackled a restrained detainee. Another officer appeared to kick the detainee while he lay on the floor, according to the report. Despite the footage, the incident was classified as a low-level use of force and resulted in no documented injuries.

In another case, a correction officer sprayed a chemical agent onto his own boot inside a sanitation closet before placing the contaminated footwear near the face of a fully restrained detainee, the report said. Other staff nearby appeared to joke about the incident and pretended no spray had been deployed.

Steve Martin, the court-appointed monitor, said the episodes exposed “the toxicity that lies at the center of the culture that must be reformed” and reflected behavior “fundamentally incompatible with staff’s constitutional and ethical obligations.”

Martin has for years been highly critical of how jail officials decide who to discipline and how they carry out those punishments.

Townsend has an active social media presence. She regularly posts updates on the Luigi Mangione case and publicly touts her legal victories on TikTok and other platforms. 

Correction Captains Association President Paul Idlett said the union is prepared to work with Townsend if she approaches disciplinary cases fairly.

“The CCA is willing to work with anybody that’s going to treat our members fairly, listen to all the facts and mitigating circumstances, and not be a headhunter,” Idlett told THE CITY.

But he said he was concerned about Townsend’s past social media activity criticizing the department, especially during the Adams years.

“I don’t want the negative aspect that she promotes on social media about the department carrying over into this role,” he said. “I’m willing to sit down with her to see what the direction is. But if she’s coming in with the energy that the department did her wrong, it’s not going to be good.”

Last month, she was a guest on Harsh Truths, a podcast hosted by Norman Seabrook, the former longtime head of the correction officers’ union who was sentenced to close to five years in prison in part for taking a $60,000 kickback stuffed inside a Salvatore Ferragamo bag. 

“She’s a fantastic attorney,” he told his listeners at the start of the episode. “What’s important about her is she’s been on both sides of it.”

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The city’s Correction Department is set to renew a multimillion-dollar contract with a prison telecom giant that’s bragged of using recordings of detainees’ private phone calls to train its artificial intelligence model.  

The Mamdani administration plans to pay Securus Technologies up to $23 million over five years for phone service used by roughly 7,000 people detained on Rikers Island, according to a notice in the City Record. The contract is set to begin July 1.

The Brooklyn Defenders legal aid group and technology experts are urging the Mamdani administration to scrap the agreement, arguing it could hand over vast amounts of personal data including recordings, voiceprints and social connections to a private company with limited oversight and a checkered history.

The conversations people in jail have with their loved ones include intimate moments and private, vulnerable, interactions. It was unclear if, in addition to being recorded, the private calls of New York City detainees are being used to train Securus’ AI model. 

In a memo opposing the contract, Brooklyn Defenders warned of “a community surveillance apparatus that reaches far beyond jail walls, sweeping up the families, friends, and communities of incarcerated New Yorkers without their knowledge.”

Securus began developing AI systems in 2023 using its archive of recorded jail calls to train models designed to flag potential criminal activity, company president Kevin Elder told MIT Technology Review.

One model, he said, was built using seven years of calls from the Texas prison system, with additional efforts underway to create similar tools tailored to other states and localities.

Over the past year, the company has been testing these tools to analyze inmate conversations in real time, according to Elder. 

He described the system as capable of scanning what he called a “treasure trove” of data, using large language models to identify signs that a crime may be planned, with the goal of detecting potential criminal activity earlier in its development.

Correction officials pushed back on several of the concerns raised by advocates — particularly related to immigration enforcement — saying the agency has not enrolled in Securus’ broader data-sharing network.

“The Department has not opted-in to any data or information sharing application with external users,” spokesperson Latima Johnson said in a statement. 

The contract’s confidentiality provisions bar Securus from sharing reports or data without prior written approval from the department, she added.

Department officials declined to answer detailed questions about whether federal immigration authorities have ever sought access to the data, or whether the new contract contains additional safeguards related to AI or third-party integrations.

The proposed contract has not been made available to the public.

Advocates point out Securus was found to have improperly recorded hundreds of attorney-client calls from Rikers, which was later disclosed to prosecutors in 2020 and 2021. 

The issue came to light after public defenders discovered the recordings in evidence shared by prosecutors. The company ultimately deleted the affected calls and worked with the city to overhaul safeguards.

Representatives for Securus, headquartered in Dallas, did not respond to an email seeking comment. 

‘Swept Into These Systems’

Zina Maka, a law professor who studies prison surveillance and emerging technologies, said prison systems historically operate with broad secrecy and legal deference.

“A lot of things that happen in the prison space are subject to a significant amount of opacity,” she told THE CITY.

The introduction of technology has improved communication in jails and prisons — detainees now have access to tablets for video calls — and educational offerings for incarcerated people. 

But it also expands surveillance beyond jail walls, Maka said. 

“Families who have done nothing wrong are increasingly swept into these systems simply because they’re communicating with someone in custody,” she said.

Critics noted Securus’ THREADS platform, which aggregates call recordings, transcripts, voiceprints and financial data to map social connections and flag behavioral patterns that investigators deem suspicious.

Securus previously said the database included information from more than 1.5 million people — including many who were never incarcerated but had received calls from someone who was.

The Correction Department says recorded calls to and from Rikers are not part of the THREADS community. 

Current jail officials did not detail what, if any, privacy protections would be part of the new contract. 

Brooklyn Defenders also raised concerns about a feature that allows participating agencies to share data across jurisdictions. If enabled, that tool could pool New York City jail data with information from facilities in other states — including some that routinely detain immigrants for federal authorities. 

That could potentially allow outside investigators to search data on New Yorkers locked up on Rikers, critics of the new contract say. 

DOC officials maintained that none of the calls would be shared with ICE. 

‘Control every word’

Bianca Tylek, executive director of advocacy group Worth Rises, said the Correction Department should stop recording detainee calls altogether..

“People’s detention is the punishment,” she told THE CITY. “But there are tons of private moments — conversations about family finances, mental health, things that have nothing to do with crime — that really shouldn’t be the purview of the government.”

Tylek also pointed to the impact on people outside the jail system. 

“It’s not just the person who’s incarcerated,” she said. “Families who have done nothing wrong are caught up in this surveillance — their voices are recorded, databased and stored for years, if not forever.”

One mother, whose son has been held on Rikers Island for more than two years, said the constant monitoring has fundamentally changed how they speak to each other.

“We have to control every word,” the woman, who asked not to be named, told THE CITY. “It’s impossible to really talk with my son about his children.”

She said her son sometimes breaks down crying on the phone but avoids discussing why because he assumes the conversations are being recorded.

Tylek noted that recording calls made from jail only started in 2008 under former Commissioner Martin Horn. Initially, the calls would be kept for 18 months before being erased. DOC did not say if that is still the case. Horn has long argued the recordings are a key tool to keeping people safe in jail and for prosecutors to bolster their criminal cases. 

Tylek noted that city officials have never publicly disclosed data on how often the recorded calls have led to those outcomes. 

“We’ve asked DOC to share how many hours they are recording and what percentage of those calls are being flagged for any security purposes,” she said. 

Commissioner Defends Contract

The contract renewal with Securus was spearheaded by James Conroy, the department’s deputy commissioner for legal matters. Conroy, who spent 25 years with the NYPD’s legal department, joined Corrections in 2024. 

The proposed deal must still be formally registered by City Comptroller Mark Levine. His office is reviewing the contract, which will likely take several weeks, spokesperson Terrence Cullen said. 

The contract extension comes as the Mamdani administration has hired a senior advisor for technology and innovation to oversee the city’s expanded use of AI. Rashida Richardson, a civil rights attorney, previously served as senior counsel at Mastercard. 

Asked about the Securus deal, she responded, “I have to decline.”

The contract comes as new Corrections Commissioner Stanley Richards has publicly talked about his difficult experience as a detainee on Rikers during the 1980s as he struggled with addiction. 

Richards defended the contract at an unrelated event last week, saying the calls would not be shared with ICE.

Asked if he’d have been concerned about his calls from Rikers Island to his father being recorded back in the day, Richards responded, “No.”

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City lawyers have agreed to pay nearly $5.2 million to settle lawsuits brought by the families of two men who died from methadone overdoses while jail staff ignored them on Rikers Island.

The settlements come amid a sharp rise in claims and a dramatic spike in taxpayer-funded payouts by the Department of Correction. 

In fiscal year 2024, the city logged 7,254 claims, up from 4,580 the previous year and eclipsing prior highs, according to data from the city comptroller’s office. Payouts ballooned to about $254 million, up from roughly $43 million in 2023. The reasons for the massive increase weren’t clear. 

Jose Mejia Martinez, 34, was neglected by multiple correction officers for more than three hours as he suffered a fatal overdose in a housing unit at the George R. Vierno Center on June 10, 2021, according to a lawsuit filed by his estate. The city agreed to pay $2.7 million to resolve the claims.

The other case involved Donny Ruben Ubiera, 33, who died from a similar overdose at the same facility on Aug. 22, 2023. The city settled that lawsuit for $2.4 million last Friday.

Both men appeared to overdose on methadone that had been administered to other detainees as part of their addiction treatment, according to jail sources familiar with reviews of the two deaths. Some incarcerated people will “cheek” doses of methadone administered by Correctional Health Services — hiding the medication in their mouths — and later spit it out to sell or trade, according to multiple jail insiders. 

Methadone is a long-acting opioid medication used to treat addiction by reducing withdrawal symptoms and cravings — but it can be fatal if taken in large quantities. 

“These settlements reflect the devastating consequences of a correctional system that repeatedly failed two vulnerable men in its custody,” said Julia Kuan, a lawyer at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, the firm that filed the lawsuits.

Martinez had been held after violating his parole by allegedly stealing a can of beer and had a history of substance use and mental health disorders, according to the lawsuit. He obtained methadone from another detainee and ingested it in a housing unit dayroom, a common area that should have been under supervision.

Soon, Martinez began staggering through the unit, struggling to remain upright and leaning against a stairwell railing while appearing severely intoxicated for more than 40 minutes, the lawsuit alleged. At one point, a correction officer walked past him without intervening as he slumped over the railing.

Other detainees helped Martinez back to his cell. Over the next several hours, officers looked into his cell multiple times as he lay incapacitated but did not call for medical assistance.

A medical emergency was declared only after another detainee found Martinez unresponsive and alerted staff, according to the lawsuit by Martinez’ family. By the time medics arrived, he was already dead — and showing signs of rigor mortis.

In a 29-page report issued in January 2025, the state Attorney General’s Office found that a correction officer had failed to fulfill his duty to obtain medical care, despite rules and training requiring him to do so.

Ubiera, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, had previously received treatment at a state psychiatric center because he was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial before being returned to Rikers Island, jail records show.

According to the complaint, his mental health deteriorated in a mental observation unit, where he repeatedly attempted to harm himself in front of staff and told officers he wanted to die.

The lawsuit alleges that on the night before his death, Ubiera ingested methadone in view of correction officers and later banged on his cell door and called for help for hours without a response.

Surveillance footage cited in the complaint shows officers had missed routine rounds. Ubiera was found unresponsive the next morning and, while officers began CPR, Narcan was not immediately available in the housing area.

By the time it was retrieved from another unit, several minutes had passed. Ubiera was pronounced dead later that day.

A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department declined to comment.

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One detainee was found dead with 66 pills in his cell.

Another lay in distress for five minutes during an apparent overdose before staff administered Narcan.

A third was left locked in his cell, unsupervised, for nearly half an hour as he spiraled into a medical crisis.

Those were some of the damning findings outlined in the latest report issued by the city’s Board of Correction on Friday. 

The oversight board’s 25-page report highlights a familiar pattern: Rikers Island correction officers off post, missed safety checks, unsecured cells and a housing unit where rules appeared optional. The report also details how Correctional Health staff failed to properly care for detainees. 

“This report shows that Rikers jail supervisors still cannot get staff to do the fundamentals of the job, namely to stay on post during a workshift and vigilantly supervise people in their custody,” said Mary Lynne Werlwas of the Legal Aid Society. “The jails have tolerated this lax approach to basic corrections for too long, and too many people have died from it.”

The same failures have been flagged in report after report, year after year, as the detainee population at Rikers includes a significant and growing minority with serious mental health needs.

The latest board report documented three deaths on Rikers: Edwin Ramos, 38, on Nov. 21; Aramis Furse, 32, on Dec. 7; and Kyron Randall, 33, on Dec. 22. 

Death by Infection

Kyron Randall’s death reads less like an isolated, poorly handled medical emergency and more like a slow-motion systems failure inside Rikers. 

He died from septic shock after medical staff failed to properly diagnose and treat him, the report found. 

Randall’s record revealed a long history of serious mental illness and substance use, the Board of Corrections report shows, and he cycled through suicide watch and Bellevue Hospital, as well as to a state mental health facility. 

He was returned to Rikers after medical staff there determined that, with the help of medication, he was ready to stand trial for allegedly murdering his 56-year-old neighbor. 

In mid-December, Randall missed multiple doses of medication over several days for a mix of reasons that are routine in the jail system. They include court appearances, refusing to take his pills and what officials described as “no response.”  

Medical staff made repeated attempts to evaluate him for complaints of stomach pain, but he refused to leave his cell. 

The morning of the medical emergency, one officer in charge of his housing unit left the area unsupervised for nearly three hours, from 5:58 a.m. until 8:42 a.m. (A probe by the Corrections Department’s internal review team concluded the officer did not violate any rules, according to the death review.) 

When correction officers finally noticed Randall was in trouble later that morning at 10:11 a.m., he was lying incoherent in his cell in vomit with his pants pulled down. 

For the next 11 minutes, jail staff stood at the front of the housing area while he lay inside his cell alone. 

When emergency response staff did arrive, a staffer briefly entered Randall’s cell twice for a few seconds before going back to watch him from outside the door, according to surveillance video.

Randall then fell out of his bed.

It wasn’t until 10:56 am — 45 minutes after the emergency was called — that staff finally entered his cell for good, rolling the 350-pound man onto a blanket with help from three fellow inmates and carrying him to a gurney.

Randall didn’t reach Elmhurst Hospital until just after noon. He was dead before 1 a.m. the next morning.

The Board of Correction recommended Correctional Health Services retrain staff to ensure continuous monitoring of detainees in medical distress, which the health service accepted.

Narcan Delay

Another death detailed in the report points to similarly routine breakdowns. 

Edwin Ramos, 38, entered custody in August 2025 and was initially flagged for high blood pressure and obesity. He said he had used fentanyl and cocaine but, for reasons not made clear in the report, was not deemed eligible for medication-assisted drug treatment, according to the board review. 

Two months later, jail officials obtained records from the state that showed a more serious medical history that included “unspecified psychotic disorders.”

Still, Ramos was placed in a general population dorm at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers instead of a medically monitored unit. Surveillance footage from the night of Nov. 20 shows multiple people openly smoking what looked like rolled cigarettes while an officer sat at the post or briefly left the area. 

Just before midnight, Ramos was seen placing an unknown substance in his mouth. Minutes later, he staggered into the bathroom, appearing lethargic, before collapsing face-first onto the floor.

After a five minute delay, a correction officer administered multiple doses of Narcan and began chest compressions. Medical staff arrived shortly after and continued resuscitation efforts, eventually transporting Ramos to the jail clinic and then to Mount Sinai Queens, where he was pronounced dead.

Contraband

In the case of Furse, the breakdown played out over hours inside a locked housing unit. 

Surveillance video reviewed by the Board shows detainees freely leaving their cells during a lockdown, passing around what appeared to be contraband and even entering one another’s cells while officers conducted cursory tours or left the post entirely. Detainees were supposed to be locked in their own cells at the time. 

Later, while the officer was off the unit, someone appeared to slide a cigarette-like item under Furse’s cell door. Other detainees repeatedly stopped by to check on him, flicking the lights on and off and trying to get his attention.

According to the report, people in custody ultimately alerted staff after hearing Furse make “weird noises” in the early morning hours of Dec. 7. 

By the time officers responded at 2 a.m., he was unresponsive.

“Responders found Mr. Furse in bed, water and vomit on the bed, the floor, and his mouth,” the board report said. “He showed no signs of breathing, had no pulse, his pupils were fixed and dilated, and he was not responding to any stimuli.” 

A correction officer administered Narcan five minutes later, before medical staff arrived, but he had no pulse. He was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Queens.

DOC later sent a Special Search Team and K-9 unit to search the housing area. They found 66 pills inside of a cup located on the desk in Furse’s cell. 

Furse’s death was the only case in the report that resulted in discipline for staff. 

According to the Board, the so-called “B” post officer assigned to his housing area was suspended for 30 days for a string of failures that included neglecting to check for signs of life, leaving the post, and failing to patrol the unit as required. 

Investigators also found the officer made false logbook entries and engaged in conduct that brought discredit to the department.

No other staff were disciplined in connection with the three deaths outlined in Friday’s report.

The report recommended the Correction Department retrain staff in several basic tasks, “including but not limited to, correction officers’ responsibility to remain on post and remain vigilant.” A department spokesman said, “We will review the recommendations.”

The Correctional Health Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Hundreds of case workers, career coaches and housing specialists at two prominent nonprofits serving recently incarcerated people announced they plan to unionize on Friday morning, May Day, looking to join the ranks of scores of workers in the education and social services sector who’ve organized in recent years.

Approximately 600 employees at the Fortune Society and the Osborne Association are seeking to join Local 153 of the Office and Professional Employees International Union. 

If the campaign at either organization is successful, it would mark a historic shift for nonprofit mainstays that receive hundreds of millions in funding from the city to help people re-enter society after stints in jail or prison. 

Fortune and Osborne staff began their organizing push a little more than a year ago, seeking better pay and health benefits, noting that many of their colleagues earn only slightly above the city’s $17 hourly minimum wage.

“There were literally people who worked for, like, the finance department who were homeless, like living in shelters,” union organizer Nicole Matthews told THE CITY. “We just want [management] to do what’s fair and what’s right.”

Some workers are, like the clients they serve, formerly incarcerated or otherwise impacted by the criminal justice system, with many supplementing their income with public assistance — a reality that Matthews, an Osbourne Association care coordinator who works at Rikers Island, described as an open secret.

In addition to better pay and health benefits, workers at both nonprofits told THE CITY they are eager for training and mentorship opportunities.

Jeff Simmons, a spokesperson for the Fortune Society, told THE CITY in a statement that the organization is “working on responding to this request. As always, we will act with the best interests of our staff in mind, and in compliance with all legal obligations.”

A spokesperson for the Osborne Association said the organization would “participate in good-faith discussions.”

“We will listen to their demands and do all we can to support our staff as they continue providing critical services and advocacy on behalf of people impacted by incarceration,” said the spokesperson, Reynaldo Muniz.

More than a dozen City Council members signed a letter to the heads of both organizations pushing them to allow workers to organize. 

The former head of the Fortune Society, Stanley Richards, was recently appointed commissioner of the city’s Department of Corrections, the first formerly incarcerated person to lead the city’s jails.

Both organizations rely heavily on city funding to serve thousands of clients across the five boroughs: Fortune Society has 22 active contracts totaling nearly $370 million, and Osborne Association has a dozen contracts totaling $223 million, according to records from the comptroller’s office.

The Fortune and Osborne workers join the ranks of scores of private-sector workers who’ve unionized in New York in recent years, a wave driven by young, college-educated workers in sectors like health, education, non-profits and the arts. 

Instead of going through a secret ballot election to form the union, workers are requesting recognition through card check neutrality, in which both management and the union agree to a neutral third party, likely an arbitrator, to count union card signatures to ensure a majority of workers want to unionize. Local 153 says that it is gathering signatures from workers on an ongoing basis until the card count takes place.

The union said it is invoking the city’s 2021 labor peace agreement law for city contractors, by which the union agrees to forfeit the right to strike in exchange for recognition by management; the union can still choose to strike down the line for another reason, for example if the parties fail to reach an agreement on a contract.

Workers who spoke with THE CITY are hopeful that their employers will recognize their union and work quickly to settle a contract.

Caleb Knight, who spent several years in and out of jail as a young person in Michigan, said it was programs like the ones offered by the Fortune Society that helped him recover from addiction, go to school and start a career. He eventually earned an MFA in poetry from Columbia University and is now an arts counselor at the Fortune Society, where he has worked for the past two years.

“I’ve been on the receiving end of programs like this,” said Knight, 33. “And though I wasn’t a participant in the Fortune Society, it was creative arts programs like what I teach now that changed my life.”

“Our message to management is positive,” he added. “I believe that the people who are part of our leadership also came to Fortune with the right idea and with the right values, and my sincere hope is that we can treat this as a collaborative opportunity.”

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As New York City barrels toward a legally mandated shutdown of Rikers Island after years of delays and fierce opposition, the Mamdani administration has tapped a key architect and booster of the original plan to help see it through.

Dana Kaplan, who helped coordinate the city’s blueprint to close the troubled jail complex, has been named the administration’s new “Rikers czar,” THE CITY has learned.

“Dana is a superlative choice to lead this complicated effort,” said Liz Glazer, her former boss at the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. “This is a task that is beyond just Rikers — not just bricks and mortar, but changing the culture inside both for the people incarcerated and the officers.”

Kaplan, whose appointment has not been officially announced, did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment. THE CITY spoke with two sources close to City Hall who confirmed her hiring. 

In March, the city said it was looking for a so-called Rikers czar to “serve as a trusted advisor to the mayor” and his top team. The salary was listed as $180,000 to $230,000. 

The city is legally required to shut down Rikers Island by 2027 and replace it with a network of smaller jails located near courthouses. 

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has acknowledged that the city will not meet that deadline but he has supported the broader plan and is seeking to move it along. His predecessor, Eric Adams, repeatedly talked about needing a “Plan B” for Rikers Island, but never detailed what that would look like. 

After leaving the mayor’s office in 2022, Kaplan worked with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform and served as a senior advisor to the Independent Rikers Commission. 

The creation of the Rikers czar was one of the key recommendations of that commission.

New Jails, Old Oppositon

Kaplan’s appointment comes as the city on Wednesday marked a milestone in building the replacement jail system, raising the final steel beam at a new downtown Brooklyn facility set to open in 2029.

“The facilities on Rikers Island are very old, decrepit, and they don’t speak life into our staff or the people in our care,” Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards told reporters. 

Richards recalled how, as a pre-trial detainee on Rikers during his youth, he felt the jail was “punishing” his father, who had to make a long trek to visit him. 

“After that visit, I asked him not to come back,” Richards said. “We lived in the Bronx, and he had to take a bus, then a train, then another bus, just to get to the Island and go through the lengthy process of reaching one of the visit spaces in the jails.

“It took him an entire day for a one-hour visit,” he added. 

Supporters of the new jails note that they will make it easier for family and friends to visit. The new facilities are all closer to criminal courthouses. 

Currently, detainees are woken up as early as 4 a.m. and hauled to courts throughout the city. The process, known as Bullpen Therapy after the courthouse holding pens, is used by prosecutors to force defendants to plead guilty or accept inferior plea deals, criminal justice advocates say. 

The Brooklyn lockup is expected to be the first of the new jails completed, according to city officials. 

In January, construction began for the new jail in Chinatown, a project expected to take six years. The 1,040-bed jail on White Street, the final piece of the Rikers closing plan, is expected to cost $3.9 billion and to be completed in 2032.

Chinatown activists and community leaders have fought the project at every turn, from protests and lawsuits to direct appeals to City Hall, pressing their case to multiple mayors, including Mamdani.

The three unions representing city jail officers and supervisors have also long opposed the plan. They say it would be easier and cheaper to simply build new facilities on Rikers. 

Backers of the shutdown plan say the new borough facilities will redefine how people accused of crimes are cared for and treated. 

“The design principles that we are using, speak life into anybody who comes into the facility,” Richards said, “with community space, with social service space, with textures and paintings and colors and operational efficiencies that would allow the department to manage whoever comes into our care for generations.”

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New York City lawmakers are pushing to overhaul how people jailed on Rikers Island cast their votes after just 335 of roughly 6,000 eligible detainees cast absentee ballots in the last general election, officials said Tuesday.

Lawmakers want to make it easier for people in custody to request absentee ballots and get information about candidates. They are also advancing legislation that would require the Department of Correction to help voters fix or replace ballots with errors – while mandating new public reporting on how many ballots are submitted, corrected or rejected.

Despite a push by advocates to boost voter participation last year, just 621 detainees even requested ballots, according to the Board of Elections.

“There’s a large population eligible to vote that’s not even requesting a ballot,” said Queens City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán. “There’s a lot of room for improvement. That’s the basis for legislation here — to really pick up those numbers.”

Lawmakers and advocates say the most sweeping change would establish polling sites on Rikers Island, arguing it’s the only reliable way to ensure voting for people in custody.  

Lockups in Cook County, Ill.; Washington, D.C. and some spots in Colorado have installed polling sites with great results, they say. 

Michael Ryan, executive director of the Board of Elections, said creating polling sites would require state legislation.

“The board is not permitted to depart from statutory authority or substitute its independent judgment for the law,” he told the Council’s Committee on Governmental Operations.

Ryan noted that about 54% of ballots requested by people on Rikers were returned in the 2025 general election, compared to roughly 73% citywide. 

“So, it’s off the mark but a lot of people don’t return their ballots whether they are held in custody or not,” he testified. 

The four-hour hearing at the Council’s Committee on Governmental Operations comes as President Donald Trump and Republican allies try to drastically limit the use of mail-in ballots nationally ahead of the midterm elections. 

In New York City, voting rights activists try to visit each jail on Rikers at least once a year. 

But advocates and lawmakers argued that volunteers alone are not able to boost the voting ranks among those held in custody. 

“Voting is our most basic right,” said Councilmember Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), the committee’s chairperson. “But on Rikers Island very few people appear able to exercise that right.” 

Most of the approximately 7,000 detainees on Rikers are eligible to vote, according to advocacy groups. The majority are being held in pretrial detention and have not been convicted. 

Currently, detainees can only vote via absentee or early mail ballots. They must request those ballots via snail mail or an online portal. Once the applications are approved, the ballots are delivered through the mail or by correction staff. 

Mail on Rikers moves slow thanks to security checks and the process can drag for weeks. Many detainees are released or transferred to state prisons before their ballots arrive.

And any issues with the ballots are nearly impossible to fix, according to lawmakers and advocates. 

In the June 2024 primary, of 155 early and absentee ballots delivered to detainees on Rikers, only 72 were deemed legitimate and counted, according to Brewer. 

The Voting on Rikers Working Group suggests updating curriculum to educate detainees, said Nell Colón, deputy corrections commissioner for programs and community partnerships. 

Representatives from the Board of Elections haven’t attended a single meeting since October 2025, Brewer noted. 

Ryan said that was because board staff were tending to the upcoming elections. He said they were in constant communication with jail officials. 

Detainees can access information on how to register and who is running on handheld tablets provided by jail staff. 

Still, the “biggest driver” of voting among detainees is in-person contact with volunteers or specially trained correction staff, Colón said. She said the department plans to boost its voter registration drives. 

“Do not think this is the end of the conversation,” Brewer said after city officials finished testifiying. “We are really really serious about getting 5,000 people eligible to vote.”

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Manhattan City Councilmember Gale Brewer is drafting legislation to force public tracking of complaints from Rikers Island made through the city’s 311 system, aiming to bring transparency and accountability to a largely opaque process.

The proposal follows reporting by THE CITY that found tens of thousands of jail-related calls to 311 each year are not publicly logged or clearly resolved. That has left detainees and their families with little insight into whether their complaints are addressed.

“The calls go into a black hole,” Brewer, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Governmental Operations, told THE CITY. 

Last year, 40,483 complaints were logged to the city’s 311 hotline about the troubled jail system, according to city records. 

But many of the calls were ignored and it’s impossible to know when they were officially if or when the complaints — often about missed medical visits, extreme heat or cold, or mold — were addressed , according to advocates, detainees, and their loved ones. 

A 311 call and a Rikers hanging death

In one 2025 incident, Rikers detainee Benjamin Kelly’s mother dialed 311 to report her son was hallucinating and clearly on the wrong medication. Two weeks later, a city correction officer found Kelly, 36, hanging from a bedsheet in his cell. 

The city’s 311 system, launched under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was designed as a centralized, high-tech way for New Yorkers to report problems, from potholes to noise complaints, and track how agencies respond.

But complaints about conditions inside the jails don’t follow that model. 

Unlike standard 311 “service requests,” which are logged publicly, routed to agencies and marked resolved, jail-related complaints often disappear from public view.

Complaints or comments?

Instead, they are categorized as “customer comments” and sent to the Department of Correction through an internal online form directed to the commissioner’s office.

Detainees and their families say that system leaves them in the dark, with calls for help frequently going unanswered. 

The proposed legislation would likely take several months to draft, according to Brewer, and then would face hearings before a full council vote. That process typically takes at least a year. 

Brewer expects broad support in the Council and from the mayor. 

“It doesn’t seem controversial,” she said. 

The Rikers 311 bill will be based on a similar cannabis reporting measure she introduced in 2024, Brewer said. That law established “a specific 311 complaint category for unlicensed cannabis retailers.” It enabled New Yorkers to report illegal shops via phone, app, or website, with grievances sent to the New York City Sheriff’s Office.

“It will have the same wording,” Brewer told THE CITY. “We could complain to the department but we’ve also got to do something about it.”

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After years of delays and cost overruns, the city plans to finally open part of a quarter-billion dollar unit at Bellevue Hospital for seriously ill detainees on Rikers Island, THE CITY has learned. 

The Mamdani administration also plans to close the North Infirmary Command, the original Rikers Island hospital constructed in 1932, according to multiple sources briefed on the plan. The facility has been used to house high-profile detainees like disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein. 

Some 314 detainees were in NIC as of March 10, the last publicly available count. An estimated 25 will be transferred to the new unit on Bellevue’s second floor. The others will be transferred to different locations on Rikers, according to jail insiders. 

The 104-bed Department of Correction unit has nearly doubled in cost and is years behind schedule, with its price tag climbing from $130 million to $241 million, according to Correctional Health Services, the NYC Health + Hospitals division that provides care to detainees.

That works out to just over $2 million per bed — including recreation space — spread across much of the historic hospital’s second floor.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to hold a press conference Tuesday morning at Bellevue announcing the long-awaited partial opening of the new unit. 

“It’s going to open in phases,” said a source familiar with the plan. The first phase is expected to be just around 25 beds, the source said.  

At least one veteran clinician working in the jail system said the shortage of space at Bellevue raises the risk that patients with significant medical needs will be housed in general population units on Rikers, where they are often more vulnerable to other detainees and poor medical care.

“Health care providers are scrambling to find beds,” the clinician told THE CITY.

Jeanette Merrill, a spokesperson for Correctional Health Services, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Bellevue already has a jail ward on the hospital’s 19th floor where some 60 detainees were housed last month. 

First unveiled in 2019 with a planned 2022 opening, the project fell years behind schedule and has now spanned three mayoral administrations. Construction records indicate the delays were driven in part by repeated requests from jail officials to modify the design to better protect correction officers.

Last year, former  Corrections Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie pointed to a separate obstacle, saying the project had yet to receive approval from the New York State Commission of Correction, the state’s jail oversight body.

The commission has refused to disclose what outstanding issues remain. 

Behind the scenes, city jail officials during the Adams administration also said they would need to hire at least 200 new officers to staff the specialized site, THE CITY reported last summer. 

The Mamdani administration came up with a solution: move staff from infirmary on Rikers Island to the Bellevue unit, jail insiders said.

City Hall officials have repeatedly tried to shutter some of the 10 jail facilities on Rikers Island ahead of the broader plan to close the complex. But those efforts have repeatedly stalled as the jail population has climbed since the pandemic.

There were 6,797 people in custody as of March 10, up from just under 4,000 in 2020, according to jail records.

In 2022, officials in the Adams administration said they would immediately close the Otis Bantum Correctional Facility, which housed 1,410 detainees last month.

Similarly, de Blasio administration officials announced plans in 2019 to shutter the Eric M. Taylor Center, where 1,397 people were being held last month, records show.

Officials in the Mamdani administration are expected to frame the infirmary’s closure as permanent, since the facility will be decommissioned with the state Commission of Correction, a move that would complicate any attempt to bring it back online.

In recent years, the infirmary was where jail officials “disappeared” detainees who repeatedly act out, according to advocates. 

“It was like a pseudo- solitary area,” a jail source said, noting that the facility had many empty spots where high-profile detainees could be “stashed” for months. 

Victor Pate, co-director of the HALT Solitary campaign and a former Rikers detainee, said he welcomed the opening of the Bellevue unit as “an important step” in getting medically vulnerable people out of “deplorable conditions,” while calling NIC “one of the most extreme sites of isolation” in the jail system. 

He added the city must still go further to end solitary confinement and close Rikers entirely.

NIC was the site of a major fire three years ago. 

A 2023 investigation by the New York City Board of Correction found widespread lapses in fire safety protocols during the blaze, which broke out on April 6, 2023, inside a restrictive housing unit. 

Board officials said the incident highlighted systemic failures in staffing, oversight and emergency response inside the aging facility. 

Bellevue is not the only Rikers-linked hospital project plagued by delays and rising costs, city records show.

More massive overruns

A plan to build 144 DOC-designated beds at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn has ballooned from $239 million to $381 million and counting, according to Correctional Health Services. The unit, initially slated to open in 2023, is now expected to be completed in 2028.

At North Central Bronx Hospital, a proposed 92-bed detention unit has seen its budget grow from $240 million to $288 million, CHS records show. That project, once scheduled for completion in 2024, is also now projected to open in 2028.

One local elected official was thrilled by the news of the Bellevue unit finally opening. 

“I had not heard this news. That’s freaking amazing!” Brooklyn City Council member Lincoln Restler, who has pushed to open the unit, told THE CITY. 

“It’s disgraceful there have been so many years of delays,” he said, “but I’m thankful the Mamdani administration is finally moving forward.”

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After visiting her son on Rikers Island last June, Benjamin Kelly’s mother dialed 311 in a panic. 

He was hallucinating about an insect crawling up his nose, dead bodies in the walls and something reaching up from the floor to grab him, Angela Kelly told the operator. 

She urged the jail’s medical staff to change his medication. 

That never happened, according to a report by the city’s Board of Correction. 

Two weeks later, a correction officer found Kelly, 37, hanging from a bedsheet inside the Eric M. Taylor Center, one of 10 jails on the island.

The desperate call was one of 40,483 complaints logged to the city’s 311 hotline about the troubled jail system in 2025, according to city records, which show more than 30,000 calls a year since 2021.

The 311 system was launched during the Bloomberg administration as a state-of-the-art way for New Yorkers to communicate with city agencies about everything from potholes to social service benefits to noise complaints.

But grievances about conditions inside the jails don’t function like typical 311 “service requests,” which are publicly recorded online, forwarded to the appropriate agency and closed out when the agency says they have been tackled.

Instead, they are routed to the Department of Correction as “customer comments,” funneled to the agency through an online form sent to the commissioner’s office. 

Some detainees and their loved ones say their calls for help go unanswered, contending the hotline allows frontline officers and supervisors to deflect or ignore direct complaints and requests for assistance.

“It’s like their biggest cop-out is to just say call 311,” said Natalie Fiorenzo, a corrections specialist with New York County Defender Services. “An officer or captain will tell you to have your client put in a 311 complaint. And everyone knows those complaints don’t go anywhere.”

The number of 311 complaints about Rikers began to increase in 2015 when the city made phone calls free for detainees. 

According to the city’s tech agency, which operates the hotline, the 311 calls are forwarded to the Department of Correction’s office of constituent services and grievance services. Jail staff in that unit are supposed to forward the complaints to the relevant jail officials. 

The medical complaints are sent to the city’s Correctional Health Services, which oversees treatment for people behind bars. 

Because they are not classified as formal service requests, they do not appear in the city’s online 311 Open Data portal. 

Additionally, the types of complaints and how long it takes to close them out are typically not made public. 

A small handful of calls do actually land on the public portal each year and are usually forwarded to agencies like the Health Department, NYPD and Buildings Department. City officials did not explain why those calls weren’t directly forwarded to the DOC. 

Those complaints were closed within 18 days on average without any finding of wrongdoing or need for correction, according to the city data. 

Overall, detainees and their loved ones say the 311 calls can range from reports over frigid jail units, pleas to transfer to a different facility, questions about Rikers’ visitation process and requests for specialized diets. They also sometimes flag inadequate medical care. 

Some 311 calls lead to action. 

Crystal Steward, 39, said her 21-year-old son, who has been held at Rikers Island for close to a year, was denied outdoor recreation, laundry services and mental health services multiple times. 

After she called 311 on three different occasions, she said things changed. 

“They usually get things done when I call,” Steward told THE CITY as she waited in line Wednesday afternoon to visit her son on Rikers Island.

Jazzy, who is based in Brooklyn and declined to include her last name because she feared her boyfriend could face retaliation from correction officers at Rikers, agreed. 

She said she calls 311 regularly after her boyfriend tells her about the lack of hot water in the showers, poor food and the staff treating incarcerated people poorly. 

“He’ll call me about the heat being fixed, and I’m thinking, ‘That’s a coincidence, I just called them,’” she said while on the Fulton Street shuttle headed to Rikers. 

Kaylim Holmes, 34, a former detainee, said he called 311 multiple times while he was incarcerated. His complaints included mice, excessive heat and mold in the showers, he told THE CITY just as he was released from jail Wednesday. 

After he made the calls, he said he was transferred from the Otis Bantum Correctional Center to the George R. Vierno Center within the island. 

But the problems persisted. 

“I was freezing in the cell,” Holmes recalled.

Diva Mackenzie, 42, Harlem, told THE CITY she called 311 asking for information on where her boyfriend was incarcerated after his January arrest.

“I called and they acted like they couldn’t help me,” Mackenzie said.

Alex Rotar, who is currently locked up on a gun possession charge tied to a mental health breakdown, said he desperately tried to block a transfer to another facility on Rikers. He was afraid that moving to another unit would put him more at risk with high-classification detainees in the area. 

But his multiple 311 calls weren’t enough to convince jail officials to block the transfer, he said. 

During a phone interview from Rikers on Friday, Rotar told THE CITY that he also recently called 311 to report a fight between detainees that left one injured. “They never followed up,” he said. 

Detainees placed in restrictive housing units — similar to solitary confinement — have a particularly difficult time using the hotline, according to Fiorenzo from the New York County Defenders, which represents clients who can’t afford a private lawyer. 

Detainees start in a more restrictive Level 1 unit and can move to a less restrictive Level 2 and are eventually supposed to return to the general population.

But those in Level 1 face the steepest barriers, she said.

“They used to have the same access to phone calls as anyone else on the island — something like 20 minutes every few hours,” Fiorenzo said. “Now it’s been cut to about six minutes a day.”

That restriction can make it nearly impossible for detainees to seek help, even as those units generate some of the most serious complaints.

“That’s where we hear about a lot of issues, because it’s essentially solitary,” she said. “The conditions can be much harsher.”

The city’s Board of Correction, which oversees the department, also has a hotline for people in custody. Some of those calls are played during the board’s monthly meeting. But the total number of calls made to the board each year and how they are handled is not posted online. 

As for Benjamin Kelly, a Board of Correction investigation found that his mother had warned jail officials her son was on the wrong medication. She called 311 to tell them he should be on the antipsychotic Clozaril, not mood-stabilizing drugs like Depakote, which she said had never helped his symptoms.

Records show 311 operators transferred her directly to Correctional Health Services, where she again pleaded for help, saying her son was in distress and crying. Records reveal that a medical clinician was sent to speak with him at his cell, but he refused, shouting for the staff member to leave.

The 311 complaint was only closed — without documenting any action taken — after Kelly died on June 20, 2025, the board review said.  

No further follow-up was recorded.

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