In October 2024, a Rikers Island social employee got here ahead with a bombshell accusation: officers have been routinely isolating severely mentally unwell males of their cells for weeks and even months, a course of generally known as “deadlocking.”
Days later, the town’s predominant oversight company, the Division of Investigation (DOI), introduced an inquiry into the allegation.
Greater than 450 days have since handed, and the investigation stays open without end.
“The Division of Investigation’s delay permits hurt to proceed in actual time,” the previous Rikers social employee, Justyna Rzewinski, instructed THE CITY. “When investigations stall, they fail the very folks they’re meant to guard.”
Diane Struzzi, DOI’s prime spokesperson, declined to remark. The watchdog company is at present run by an performing commissioner after Mayor Zohran Mamdani accepted the resignation of Jocelyn Strauber, who led the division underneath Mayor Adams.
The probe continues as the town’s Division of Correction will quickly have a brand new management workforce in place: remediation supervisor Nicholas Deml and commissioner Stanley Richards. Each have beforehand expressed curiosity in bettering circumstances for folks behind bars whereas sustaining safety.
The 2 commissioners appointed by Adams, Louis Molina and Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, lengthy insisted that “solitary confinement” doesn’t exist at Rikers — whilst they repeatedly fought authorized efforts to ban or strictly restrict extended isolation.
Present and former correction officers, incarcerated folks and protection attorneys say that, whatever the terminology, folks at Rikers proceed to be held alone for stretches that far exceed worldwide requirements governing the therapy of incarcerated folks.
Confinement spots embrace so-called “consumption” areas, cells in largely vacant housing items and even bathe stalls.
Days after taking workplace, Mamdani signed an govt order extending a long-running emergency declaration governing the town’s jails. The order additionally directed Correction Division management to provide a concrete plan to unwind years of suspended jail guidelines, together with restrictions on solitary confinement.
Mamdani gave correction officers 45 days, which ends on Feb. 19.
What the Whistleblower Noticed
The deadlocking allegations have been first reported by the New York Every day Information, which detailed Rzewinski’s firsthand account of life inside Rikers’ specialised psychological well being items. Greater than half of the folks held at Rikers have some type of psychological sickness, in response to metropolis knowledge.
Rzewinski labored with many detainees who have been discovered unfit to face trial and have been awaiting switch to state psychiatric hospitals corresponding to Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Heart.
Due to persistent mattress shortages, these transfers have been usually delayed for months, leaving folks with extreme psychological sickness housed at Rikers as an alternative. Officers would “impasse” them into cells, justifying the isolation as a security precaution, she mentioned.
These with essentially the most acute psychiatric wants and the least outdoors help, she mentioned, have been usually subjected to the harshest circumstances. Some would cowl their our bodies in feces.
The DOC by no means documented those that have been locked in, simply itemizing them with a white tag by a management panel in an space generally known as the bubble, the place officers are stationed, she added.
Rzewinski, who has since left her job on Rikers, mentioned she was interviewed by DOI in December 2024 as a part of the probe into deadlocking.
Dr. Robert Cohen, who lately retired from the town’s Board of Correction, mentioned the extended silence on the investigation is particularly harmful given the stakes.
“Deadlocking is not only one other merciless however routine DOC observe — this can be very harmful,” Cohen instructed THE CITY. “The hazard is just not theoretical. Individuals inside have already skilled it.”
Cohen mentioned DOI dedicated to investigating the observe as a result of it was allegedly getting used to disclaim incarcerated folks entry to important companies, together with doubtlessly life-saving medical and psychological well being care. Letting that investigation languish, he warned, solely compounds the dangers detainees face.
“They’ve been investigating deadlocking for greater than a 12 months,” Cohen mentioned. “The failure to launch a report places everybody in New York Metropolis’s jails liable to life and limb.”
If the probe is just not full, Cohen mentioned, DOI ought to, at minimal, launch an interim standing report. “The general public deserves to know what is occurring.”
A June 2025 report by the town’s Board of Correction confirmed that deadlocking was occurring on Rikers. The report, which coated a six week interval, discovered situations of involuntary lock-ins inside psychological commentary housing areas.
Board employees recognized seven involuntary lock-ins throughout two amenities: 4 at George R. Vierno Heart and three on the Rose M. Singer Heart. Correction officers cited a variety of justifications for confining folks to their cells, together with allegations that somebody had lice, thrown or tried to throw feces, assaulted employees, argued with medical personnel or engaged in disruptive habits.
However Correctional Well being Providers, which gives well being care in metropolis jails, instructed investigators that lice therapy is usually supplied in clinics and doesn’t require isolating sufferers inside psychological commentary items. In uncommon circumstances, sufferers could also be transferred to a separate communicable illness unit, however seclusion is just not a part of commonplace therapy.
The report additionally raised issues about poor document maintaining by officers.
Of the seven involuntary lock-ins, officers recorded solely three logbook entries that particularly referenced the alleged incidents that led to the detainee’s confinement. In some circumstances, folks in custody disputed the explanations they have been locked in, and the housing unit logs didn’t replicate the occasions described by employees.
Board investigators discovered that the involuntary lock-ins ranged in size from roughly an hour to a full day.
In the course of the evaluation, Board employees additionally examined using tags positioned over cell numbers on control-room switchboards, a observe beforehand highlighted by Rzewinski throughout a 2024 public assembly.
Correction officers instructed investigators the tags have been meant to sign that somebody was out of the unit for court docket or programming, or to remind officers to maintain doorways closed following prior incidents. Investigators mentioned they didn’t observe folks confined in tagged cells for prolonged intervals.
Former DOI Commissioner Mark Peters, who led the company underneath Mayor Invoice de Blasio, instructed THE CITY that prolonged investigations can undermine public belief.
“One of many causes we tried to finish investigations in nicely underneath 14 months is as a result of extended delays have an effect on public confidence,” mentioned Peters, who emphasised that he couldn’t communicate to the specifics of the deadlocking investigation.
Peters famous that in his tenure some probes did take longer than a 12 months for “good and bonafide causes,” significantly in complicated circumstances.
However he mentioned DOI has to stability thoroughness with timeliness.
“There’s clearly an crucial to do investigations fastidiously — you possibly can’t sacrifice accuracy for pace,” Peters mentioned. “On the similar time, there’s an crucial to cope with investigations promptly to take care of confidence in DOI.”
