A metropolis investigation into allegations that correction officers at Rikers Island routinely confined severely mentally unwell detainees to their cells for days or even weeks at a time discovered the claims couldn’t be substantiated — whereas additionally citing lacking video footage and uncooperative witnesses.
The Division of Investigation probe examined situations inside a psychological well being housing unit often called 13A after a jail social employee accused officers of “deadlocking” 11 detainees of their cells for extended intervals in 2024.
Investigators stated the “absence of parts of video footage,” “lack of cooperation/response from potential witnesses” and restricted element within the allegations constrained their capacity to conduct a “significant investigation,” in accordance to an inside closing memo obtained by THE CITY by way of a Freedom of Info Regulation request.
Nonetheless, DOI concluded that its overview “didn’t reveal any situations the place (detainees) had been locked-in their cells for weeks or months at a time as alleged.”
The allegations added to a litany of lengthy documented abuses by officers and institutional neglect at Rikers Island amid efforts to shut the jail and exchange it with fashionable services close to legal courthouses.
Investigators reviewed surveillance footage from August via October 2024 and located detainees in unit 13A each inside and out of doors their cells. The six-page report stated detainees had been seen showering, watching tv, cleansing their cells, enjoying playing cards, taking part in recreation, making telephone calls and lining up for treatment.
The memo additionally stated that 11 detainees flagged by the whistleblower had been seen by way of surveillance video outdoors their cells at varied occasions, whereas different detainees housed in 13A had been seen in frequent areas and taking part in leisure actions.
Investigators additionally discovered that a number of detainees remained inside their cells for “extended intervals of time.”
However the report stated that every detainee’s cell door was “periodically opened” by correction workers and that every one had been offered meals.
The DOI overview recognized roughly 9 situations during which detainees had been locked of their cells following housing-area searches, fights or use-of-force incidents, which investigators concluded adopted division guidelines.
The whistleblower, social employee Justyna Rzewinski, stated the investigation didn’t precisely seize situations contained in the unit and at different areas on Rikers.
“Merely stating that cell doorways had been periodically opened doesn’t imply people had been truly capable of depart their cells, entry companies, or expertise significant out-of-cell time,” she instructed THE CITY.
The DOI report comes shortly after Mayor Zohran Mamdani ordered jail officers to give you a plan to strictly restrict the usage of solitary confinement.
Since 2023, former Mayor Eric Adams and his predecessor used emergency government orders to override Native Regulation 42, the sweeping solitary confinement reform handed by the Metropolis Council that caps isolation at 60 days yearly and requires intensive due course of protections.
The deadlocking allegations had been first reported by the New York Day by day Information, which detailed Rzewinski’s firsthand account of life inside Rikers’ specialised psychological well being models. Greater than half of the individuals held at Rikers Island have some type of psychological sickness, based on metropolis information.
Rzewinski labored with many detainees who had been discovered unfit to face trial and had been awaiting switch to state psychiatric hospitals reminiscent of Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Heart on Randalls and Wards Island.
Due to power mattress shortages, these transfers had been usually delayed for months, leaving individuals with extreme psychological sickness housed at Rikers as an alternative. Officers would “impasse” them into cells, justifying the isolation as a security precaution, she stated.
These with probably the most acute psychiatric wants and the least outdoors assist, she stated, had been usually subjected to the harshest situations. Some would cowl their our bodies in feces.
DOI investigators reviewed the jail system’s incident and fight-tracking databases and located that lots of the detainees recognized by Rzewinski had been concerned in use-of-force incidents, assaults on workers, self-harm, slashings, stabbings and potential drug overdoses. The DOI report famous that their involvement in these incidents recommended the detainees had been outdoors their cells when the occasions occurred.
DOI probers additionally reviewed inside emails.
They discovered six messages discussing unnamed detainees being locked of their cells due to slashings, stabbings, aggressive habits, use-of-force incidents or sexual conduct. However investigators stated the emails didn’t point out how lengthy the detainees remained locked in or present sufficient element to determine them.
Rzewinski, who has since left her job at Rikers, stated jail officers by no means documented those that had been locked in. As a substitute, they simply listed them on white tags by a management panel inside an space often called “the bubble,” the place officers are stationed, she added.
DOI investigators stated they noticed white slips of paper connected to eight cell-control buttons contained in the unit’s management room throughout a February 2025 go to to the unit. A correction workers member instructed them the papers marked detainees accused of smoking, exposing themselves, assaulting workers or in any other case being disruptive, based on the closing memo.
The workers member stated these detainees had been sometimes locked in for one to 2 hours, not whole days. Investigators later reviewed surveillance footage from the go to dates and reported seeing these detainees outdoors their cells at varied occasions, together with within the dayroom, cleansing their cells and interacting with others.
DOI’s report comes after a separate oversight company concluded that involuntary lock-ins had been taking place.
A June 2025 report by town’s Board of Correction documented seven involuntary lock-ins over a six-week interval inside psychological commentary housing areas on the George R. Vierno Heart and Rose M. Singer Heart.
The Board of Correction report additionally raised issues about poor documentation by jail workers. Of the seven involuntary lock-ins recognized, solely three had been particularly documented in housing unit handwritten logbooks, investigators discovered. In some instances, detainees disputed officers’ accounts of why they had been confined, whereas housing data didn’t corroborate workers explanations.
Dr. Robert Cohen, who retired from town’s Board of Correction final yr, slammed the DOI report, saying it’s “fatally flawed” and “must be retracted.”
He famous the July 2024 dying of Charizma Jones, 23, a former Rikers detainee.
Jones was “deadlocked within the infirmary for 3 days,” Cohen stated, noting that jail officers blocked medical workers from checking her out six occasions over a two-day interval a month earlier than she died.
Present and former correction officers, detainees and protection attorneys say that no matter time period the jail system makes use of, individuals detained at Rikers Island are nonetheless routinely stored alone for intervals that far exceed worldwide requirements for humane confinement.
They are saying detainees are remoted in locations starting from consumption holding areas and sparsely populated housing models to bathe stalls transformed into makeshift holding cells.
The DOI report was made public hours earlier than Rzewinski formally graduated from Yeshiva College with a doctorate diploma in social welfare.
“I’m so upset concerning the findings,” she instructed THE CITY hours earlier than the commencement ceremony. “Primarily based on my expertise working there, I do know what I witnessed.”
