The Daily - ‘No Crime Is Worth That’

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

This episode contains strong language and descriptions of violence.A Times investigation has uncovered extraordinary levels of violence and lawlessness inside Rikers, New York City’s main jail complex. In this episode, we hear about one man’s recent experience there and ask why detainees in some buildings now have near-total control over entire units.Guest: Jan Ransom, an investigative reporter for The Times focusing on criminal justice issues, spoke with Richard Brown, a man detained at Rikers.Love listening to New York Times podcasts? Help us test a new audio product in beta and give us your thoughts to shape what it becomes. Visit nytimes.com/audio to join the beta.Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: Here’s more reporting on how a staffing emergency has disrupted basic functions of the jail system, giving detainees at the Rikers Island jail complex free rein inside.Now, amid the chaos, women and transgender people are expected to be transferred.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, a Times investigation has uncovered unprecedented levels of violence and lawlessness inside New York City's main jail complex on Rikers Island. Astead Herndon spoke with our colleague, Jan Ransom, about one man's recent experience there and why Rikers guards have, in effect, handed over control of the jail to its detainees.

It's Thursday, October 14th. Jan, can you tell us about the reporting that you've been doing on Rikers Island? Sure, Sted. So I've been covering Rikers since I joined the Times in 2017. It's one of the largest jail facilities in the country. It sits between the Bronx and Queens on the East River in New York City. And there are over 4,800 people there, a majority of which are awaiting trial. And so these are people who have not been convicted of a crime. And the rest of the population includes people who are there on technical parole violations. they are on technical parole violations. And the four years that I've been covering Rikers,

I've written about a number of abuses there, whether it was guards who were accused of assaulting detainees, to jail staff who have neglected to provide care to the mentally ill, to incarcerated people who have just been held in solitary confinement for weeks, if not months. Rikers has long been this place that lawmakers have described as a stain on the city. But what we've seen in recent years is this effort to try to change the place, to reform it. And there's even been this push to close down Rikers. But in spite of that, Rikers has just continued to have this reputation for violence and brutality. It's just never been a place where good things happen. Right. It's one of the country's most notorious jails and certainly the city's most notorious one.

But what's happening right now at Rikers? What makes this moment unique? Right now, we're seeing a complete collapse of the jail system, unlike we've seen in years, possibly decades. And in recent months, I've been hearing a lot from people on the inside who have just been desperate for help. Hey, Richard, how are you? All right. One of them is a man named Richard Brown. Well, I wanted to see if you were still interested in chatting. Yeah. And who is Richard? And Richard, tell me your age. I don't think I got that early on in the conversation. Tell me your age. I don't think I got that early on in the conversation.

I'm 49. So Richard is 49. He's from Connecticut, and he details cars for a living. And he was picked up in September on a probation violation for a domestic violence charge. And so we never, ever spend any time at Rikers? No, never in my life. I just read books and seen movies. He'd never been to Rikers before. And when he gets there, the first place he's taken to is what's known as Intake. And what is Intake? What happens there?

So Intake is a place where people who are fresh off the street are housed. It's a holding pen where people are supposed to be there no more than 24 hours. It's also where they are assessed by medical and mental health professionals. But when Richard entered this intake cell, what he saw was very chaotic. What did he see? So when Richard comes into intake, he sees crowded holding pens. He sees no beds. Some people are even sleeping standing up. And what about using the bathroom?

He sees one toilet, urine on the floor, and feces. He sees one toilet, urine on the floor, and feces. Like, don't the people be scared in the bathroom? He sees that, you know, people are scared to even use the bathroom. And why are they scared? So within these holding pens, you have gang some of the older detainees who were there were terrified about having to walk through people to get to the bathroom. And so instead, some of them, he said, just urinated and defecated on themselves. Wow.

What about food? Well, everybody that's part of the gang, they eat first, and we wasn't part of the gang, so we just got what was left. Any time that food arrived, the detainees who were gang members would get first dibs, and everyone else would get what was left or nothing at all. And after the gang ate, what was left for you? A cereal and milk sometimes, just plain cereal. what was left for you? So while Richard is in intake, within two hours of him being there, he is assaulted by a group of gang members who wanted his sneakers. Oh, four or five of them assaulted you?

Luckily, he wasn't badly hurt, but it did leave him with some bruises. How did you feel in that moment? You know, you just got there, you already got in a fight. How did you feel? He also saw gang members who were running this holding pen, pressuring people to strip. And if they didn't strip, the gang members threatened to stab them. Where are the guards here? Why is there not supervision to stop this kind of lawlessness? Richard said there were two to three guards outside of the holding pens.

You know, he said they often did not intervene and would say things to the effect of what are they supposed to do or would say nothing at all. He told me that at one point, some of the gang members were bullying another person. It was the inmates telling them to hang themselves. By encouraging him to hang himself. And the guards were slow to respond. They just sit there. I think they play in or I don't know what it is. they playing or I don't know what it is. He also recalled seeing a detainee take a light from a fixture and smash it onto a guard's head through this opening slot. In response, the correction officers sprayed the entire cell with pepper spray.

They sprayed the whole thing. They sprayed almost every pen we was in. They sprayed the whole pen. They sprayed almost every pen we was in. They sprayed it with lace. And it just became this really chaotic scene. One of the guys caught a seizure. Richard saw a man have a seizure. They pulled him out and just left him on the side. And the guards pulled the man out of the cell

and just left him in front of the cell there. Did not, you know, call for medical assistance or render any aid. You said they left him on the side of the gate. Do you know how long they left him there? They just left him there until he came to. On top of all of this, Richard is asthmatic. And while this is happening, he actually has an asthma attack. And despite having asked a jail staffer for an inhaler, he didn't get one. How did you manage?

I did. I had to put a wet thing around my nose so I could breathe. Instead, he tries to find a way to protect himself by using his T-shirt, wetting it, and wrapping it around his face. Jen, how long did Richard have to spend in intake? How long in total? Richard was in intake for a week. And remember, this is a place you're not supposed to be held in for more than 24 hours. And he's eventually housed in a unit. And despite everything that he just witnessed in intake, what he sees when he walks into this unit still manages to shock him. He's placed into a unit that has no guards.

One guy, they just kept fighting the guy every time we went. He was just sitting there, and the guy just turned around and started beating him again. He was yelling, what did I ever do to you? Why do you keep hitting me? Why do you keep hitting me? He recalled seeing a man constantly beaten by gang members and crying out, but there were no officers on the floor to help him.

Every other day someone was getting beat up? Every day somebody, not every other day, every day somebody got beat up. He is seeing multiple fights a day. At least three to four times a day. And every minute that he was in there, he was just worried that something might happen to him. You know, Jen, for all the stories that I have heard and read about jails, this is still completely shocking. Are you hearing the same type of stories in the rest of your reporting that you heard from Richard?

Absolutely. I mean, I've been hearing from detainees and correction officers alike and reviewed court filings and city records. And Richard's story is a reflection of many stories, just describing just bizarre, unimaginable scenes. Just recently, there was an incident in which a detainee took a bus and rammed it into the side of a building on Rikers. And he did this easily because he had been left there without any supervision. Wow. In another instance, there was a detainee who stole keys from a correction officer and used those keys to let out one of his friends. The chaos has just continued there unabated. And the correction officers at Rikers have essentially given up their power and left it to the detainees.

We'll be right back. Jan, you mentioned that correctional officers at Rikers have essentially given up their power and handed the jail over to the detainees. How did that come to be? Well, what's important to understand is that for all the long-standing issues Rikers has had over the years, it's also been a place where there's been little to no accountability for officers and their supervisors who don't follow the rules. So part of why Rikers has always had such a notorious reputation isn't just because of the abuses that take place there, but also because they've often been left unchecked. But what's very different about this current crisis is that we're not just seeing

issues with how correction officers behave while they're on the job, but that a lot of officers just are not showing up to work. What do you mean? Right now, we're seeing a large number of officers who are either out sick or AWOL. Currently about 1,600 officers. So almost like a quarter of the 8,000 officers working in New York City jails. And when we talk about correction officers, they are the people who keep jails running, right? They're needed for everything from taking a detainee down to the medical clinic or to an appointment with a mental health counselor or to court. And so without them, we're seeing what we see now, which is a near total collapse of the very basic functions of a jail system.

Are correctional officers not essential workers? How is it that they've just stopped coming to work in a pandemic? So you're totally right. They are essential workers. And by law, they cannot strike. But with the pandemic, you had officers get sick, hundreds of them. You had some of them die. them. You had some of them die. And a lot of these correction officers are predominantly women and people of color who were the first to complain that they were not getting protective equipment when the pandemic hit. And so a lot of them felt alone and unsupported by the administration, by their immediate bosses. And there was just this real resentment.

And, you know, now you're seeing that some officers are simply just not showing up, that they are abusing a very generous sick leave policy, which essentially gives them unlimited time so long as they can have a doctor's note. What does this mean then for the officers who are coming in, the rest of them? So I've spoken to a number of correction officers at Rikers. None of them were willing to be recorded because they're not allowed to speak to the media. But what they've said is that they basically feel like they're working in an impossible situation. You know, officers in these situations are having to work triple shifts,

which is 24 hours. So a lot of these same conditions that Richard Brown described, they're working in those conditions without breaks, without food, without water. The infrastructure at Rikers is also crumbling. And so you have detainees who are able to make weapons out of, say, plexiglass or scraps of metal that they're finding falling from the building. And so with some officers, they have made a conscious decision not to, for example, pursue a detainee who has a weapon. You know, these would be officers who are alone, oftentimes having to use force against a detainee in a housing unit that has dozens of detainees. And also it may require for them to call for backup. But in this moment, there are so many different emergencies happening in the jail

system today at any given time. Often backup is slow to respond. So for example, there was this one incident this past August where a detainee escaped and attacked a guard. And the only way for the guard to protect himself was to lock himself in the detainee's cell. You're saying that the corrections officer actually shut himself in a cell meant for a detainee in order to escape? Right, exactly. And so what we're seeing is that it's an overall dangerous situation, not just for the people who are held on Rikers, but also for the people who work there. So from what you're describing, these officers have been in extremely difficult situations. And in some cases, they're actually avoiding intervening for their own safety. But what I

am wondering is about what they've said about those times when their decision to not intervene has actually jeopardized the safety of the detainees. Right. And I think it's important to make a distinction there that there's a difference between the officers who are trying to protect themselves and trying to think smartly about the new work environment that they're in right now versus officers who are being completely neglectful of their duties. In fact, an officer I spoke to said that he's reported officers who he's witnessed behave badly, whether it's using too much force or otherwise not doing their job. badly, whether it's using too much force or otherwise not doing their job. It's not something that the officers who do show up every day in these conditions and who care about their job,

it's not something that they support or condone. Jan, is what we're seeing at Rikers unique to Rikers? How much do we know about whether what's going on there is analogous to other jails across the country. So yes, of course, it's true that the pandemic has affected jails all over the country. There are other facilities that have also had staffing shortages, and they have moved detainees out and are moving to shut down their facilities as a result. But what I can say is that the result of the shortage at Rikers has created a crisis there that is particularly severe. It's been the deadliest year since 2015 and one of the most violent. There have been 12 deaths in New York City jails, the vast majority at Rikers, including five people who committed suicide. Wow.

There is this broad consensus that what we're seeing play out in Rikers right now is very different from what we've seen happening elsewhere. I got to say, though, how surprising is all of this? I remember reading stories, many of which were written by you, at the start of the pandemic. And I remember seeing activists and others sounding the alarm about how vulnerable Rikers was. Wasn't there warning signs before we reached this point? Absolutely. For all the problems that the pandemic has caused, particularly in terms of this staffing shortage, This crisis is ultimately

something that has been years, if not decades, in the making. Detainees and their advocates and people who work inside Rikers have been long calling for attention to how dysfunctional it is there, from the crumbling buildings to the lack of accountability for correction officers. And when Mayor de Blasio was running for re-election in 2017, he vowed to shut Rikers down, but based on current plans, that won't happen until at least 2027. So what we see instead are criticisms that because officials in New York were so preoccupied with shutting Rikers down, there wasn't a whole lot of attention paid to improving the jail for however many years it will be in operation.

And so what is Mayor de Blasio and the city doing now to address these concerns? Everyone good? Okay. The mission for me today is to come and see the specific... So it was just a few weeks ago that Mayor de Blasio visited Rikers for the first time in four years. Look, we've got a hell of a lot of work to do. I want to be very clear about that. He didn't speak to any correction officers or detainees. The intake cells had been cleaned up before he arrived, but he did acknowledge that things needed to be fixed. Please. Guys, I'm trying to explain to you the whole thing upsets me. I'm not

going to bring it down to one thing. The whole situation must be profoundly changed. Last one, Gloria. Go ahead. And so he's put forward an emergency relief plan to address the crisis on the island. He has instituted a new policy to crack down on absentee correction officers. He has expanded intake units to try and screen new detainees at the jail quickly. And on top of that, the mayor has said that he wanted to hire 600 correction officers, but that would provide no relief to the department, at least for another several months, because these are officers who

have to go through the academy and additional training before they could provide any relief to their colleagues. Right. And so at least some of these solutions are going to take a while to implement. So I feel like the obvious question is what happens to the people who continue to be sent to Rikers in the meantime? So for people who are already on the island, you know, it means that they're going to have to try to survive to some extent on their own. I mean, it means that they're going to have to try to survive to some extent on their own. I mean, particularly in units like what Richard Brown described, where there are no officers, the detainees are going to have to still protect themselves. I got to know, Jan, what ended up happening to Richard? How did you end up getting out of Rikers? How did that happen?

Yeah, the probation came on the last because they didn't let me out until 28. So Richard, after spending two weeks at Rikers, was released at the end of last month. He was sent to a facility in Connecticut where the probation violation originated. And what was the facility like in Connecticut? Was it anything like right there? No, compared to, excuse my French, it was like sugar to shit. He described it being essentially night and day. It was beautiful compared to the guards, guard control.

He said there were correction officers there to intervene when needed or to assist when needed. It was just completely unlike his experience in his very short time at Rikers. In your life, had you ever experienced jail conditions like that before? Never, ever, ever. You know, even as someone who has been incarcerated before, Richard said nothing compares to what he went through at Rikers. It's inhumane. I think I should never, no human should ever go through that.

No crime is worse than that. Thank you, Jan. Thank you. On Wednesday, in an acknowledgement of how troubled Rikers has become, New York officials ordered that hundreds of detainees be transferred out of the jail. The officials said that two groups would be transferred, women and transgender detainees. would be transferred. Women and transgender detainees. New York's governor, Kathy Hochul,

said the decision would make Rikers safer, quote, until the city can implement a permanent solution that will bring justice to Rikers. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, federal researchers said that people who received Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine may be better off with a booster shot from Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech. better off with a booster shot from Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech.

A small clinical trial has found that those who got J&J's shot, followed by a Moderna booster, saw antibody levels rise 76-fold, and those who got a Pfizer-BioNTech booster saw antibody levels rise 35-fold. By contrast, those who got a J&J booster saw antibody levels rise just 4-fold. That finding could lead to a heated debate about whether and how to offer booster shots to the 15 million Americans who have received J&J's single-dose vaccine. who have received J&J's single-dose vaccine. contains original music by Dan Powell and Alisha Va'itu, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Jonah Bromwich and Rebecca Davis O'Brien. That's it for The Daily.

I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.