A distinguished New York City civil rights lawyer. A nationally recognized jail reformer who headed lockups in two different states. The former acting commissioner of the city’s jail system.
These are three potential contenders to serve as the court-appointed receiver to run NYC’s troubled Department of Correction — if they were to be tapped by a federal judge overseeing reforms to the city’s jail system.
Normal Siegel, the former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union; Mark Cranston, the previous acting commissioner of the DOC, and Dean Williams, a nationally known incarceration reformer who oversaw state run lockups in Alaska and Colorado, each told THE CITY that they’d consider serving in the role if asked by Judge Laura Taylor Swain.
The receiver may be someone who has zero experience running a jail but will likely be someone who has the ability to manage the department and enact major changes, according to legal experts familiar with other jail and prison receiverships throughout the country.
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a jail person,” said Hernandez D. Stroud, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law,
“It could be someone who has experience with criminal justice reform,” he added.
Clark Kelso, the receiver overseeing medical care for California detainees, is a law professor without any prior experience running anything in a jail, Stroud noted.
Last Wednesday, Swain, chief district judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said she was “inclined to impose a receivership” after years of failed promises by jail officials.
How much power a potential receiver has and how long that person will be in charge remains unresolved.
The Legal Aid Society, which brought the original “Nunez” case in 2011, and city and federal lawyers must hash out how the receiver by Jan. 14, Swain ordered last week.
Receivers in other jurisdictions have had nearly total power over budgets and hiring and firing staff. They also don’t need to abide by previously negotiated union contracts. The Correction Officers Benevolent Association has long had tremendous sway over all changes in the city jails.
The union has repeatedly opposed reforms like stab resistant vests and new rules to reduce the use of solitary confinement to punish detainees who act out.
Swain is asking the sides to mutually work out the parameters of the potential receiver in part to avoid a possible legal challenge that could delay the process, according to Stroud and other legal experts.
Swain ultimately has final say if the sides can’t come to an agreement.
Raised Hands
As for possible receiver job-seekers, Siegel told THE CITY on Monday that he’s interested in taking on the difficult task of trying to reform the DOC, which has a $1 billion yearly budget.
Siegel has close ties to Mayor Eric Adams dating back to his days with the Police Department when the civil rights lawyer represented him in multiple cases.
“I’m definitely interested,” he said. “Rikers Island has been, and continues to be, a mess.”
But Siegel has never run a jail and is currently 81 years old.
He has also spent the past few years coordinating a program encouraging unhoused people to voluntarily enter a homeless shelter.
Other people possibly interested in the yet to be determined receivership role include Mark Cranston, the former acting commissioner of the DOC during the start of the de Blasio administration in 2014.
“I wouldn’t rule out a chance to fill the role of receiver but have privately shared concerns that for a receivership to work it would require someone who has extensive experience in correction management and a proven track record of working with labor unions,” he told THE CITY.
During his tenure at DOC, which started in 1987, Cranston was well liked by colleagues and the uniformed unions. He has supported the Correction Officers Benevolent Association at public hearings and press conferences.
He’s also familiar with many of the specific problems on Rikers, such as the dozens of broken cell doors, lack of a digital record keeping system and a staff disciplinary system seen by reformers and jail experts as far too differential to officers.
Since his departure in 2014, Cranston has served as the warden of Middlesex County Department of Corrections & Youth Services in New Jersey. There are rarely any fights or stabbings and slashings at the jail he oversees, and there have been no suicides over the past eight years.
But Cranston is worried how much power the receiver will have, which Swain’s most recent decision left ambiguous.
Cranston, as well as other former top DOC officials, contend the court-ordered third party leader must have broad powers to restructure the agency.
The receiver must also be able to “change longstanding rules, including previous labor agreements, and right size the work force to deliver safety, security and quality care to the population in their charge and the brave men and women who work there,” he said.
Michael Jacobson, who led the DOC during the Giuliani administration, agreed.
“There isn’t any real world way to allow DOC to run part of the system and the receiver another. It’s all of a piece,” he said last week in response to Swain’s decision. “Anything else in my opinion is a recipe for disaster.”
As for other possible receivers, Dean Williams, who headed lockups in Alaska and Colorado, has also told THE CITY he’d be interested in the role.
Williams has a long history of advocating and enacting reforms such as expanded work release programs, boosted pay for detainees, and significantly reduced the use of solitary confinement as a punishment. He also started Colorado’s first prison radio show.
In November 2022, he resigned from his role in Colorado after Gov. Jared Polis yanked support for a touted work release program dubbed Take Two. Polis was upset after the escape of a minimum-security detainee who was recaptured later that same day.
