Press Room

"The administration’s continued, escalating efforts to weaken the right to shelter have moved into seeking permanent fixes for temporary issues. The answer to the real and urgent challenges presented by an influx of asylum seekers in need without the resources to support them is not to deny the need, it’s to find the resources. It is not the the New York City municipal government's responsibility to solve national immigration issues or statewide solutions, and the president needs to expedite federal funding and support, and the governor needs to expedite a statewide response. At the same time, this administration has opposed measures that would get more people into housing or raise revenue, both of which would help alleviate this challenge.

"In meeting this moment and its very real urgency and scope, we should not be focusing efforts on removing the rights of the most marginalized.We have to find ways to meet these needs – not deny them in a way that could resonate for as many decades as this essential ‘right to shelter’ standard has been in place."

After giving his State of the People address on public safety Thursday, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams today pushed for reforms on Rikers Island as essential to the city budget. In a statement for a budget hearing by the Committee on Criminal Justice, he highlighted several areas in which misplaced spending and priorities have made Rikers more dangerous for people on both sides of the bars.

"First and foremost, any Department of Correction budget must include funding for a comprehensive plan to close the jail on Rikers Island by 2027," argued Public Advocate Williams, before pointing to the dangerous, chronic understaffing on the island stemming from sick leave abuse, saying that "While DOC argues they are understaffed, a large portion of their headcount is at home on unlimited sick leave—while there are officers out with legitimate workplace injuries, it is clear that too many are blatantly defrauding the city, as evidenced by the three officers criminally charged earlier this year. The staffing issues on Rikers Island have dangerous results."

On the administration's new cuts that would remove $17 million in restorative programming, the Public Advocate said that "Recidivism is a challenge for correction systems across the country, but with NYC’s high cost of living and competitive job market, it is especially difficult for those who have been justice-involved to stay out of jail. However, Mayor Adams is eliminating programs that would help those who are incarcerated get jobs, find housing, receive mental health and substance use treatment, and reconnect with their families after their release to save $17 million."

He further argued for legislative reforms to accompany budget expenditures, including his legislation, Intro. 549, to enact an enforceable ban on solitary confinement.

Citing this week's meeting, the Public Advocate closed by spotlighting issues related to oversight and the Board of Correction, noting that the Department of Correction has denied transparency by denying the Board remote access to video. He proposed increasing the headcount of the BOC while also ensuring that it operates with greater effectiveness and transparency, in stark contrast to recent meetings and actions.

He closed quoting lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson, who wrote, “The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated.”

The Public Advocate's full statement to the committee is below.

STATEMENT OF PUBLIC ADVOCATE JUMAANE D. WILLIAMS

TO THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE

MAY 19, 2023

Good afternoon,

My name is Jumaane D. Williams and I am the Public Advocate for the City of New York. I would like to thank Chair Rivera and the members of the Committee on Criminal Justice for holding this important hearing.

First and foremost, any Department of Correction budget must include funding for a comprehensive plan to close the jail on Rikers Island by 2027. Rikers does not make anyone—the people incarcerated there, the people who work there, and residents of New York City—safer. While DOC argues they are understaffed, a large portion of their headcount is at home on unlimited sick leave—while there are officers out with legitimate workplace injuries, it is clear that too many are blatantly defrauding the city, as evidenced by the three officers criminally charged earlier this year. The staffing issues on Rikers Island have dangerous results: during the first eight months of 2022, correction officers witnessed only 17 percent of all incidents that led to serious injuries of incarcerated people. It also means that officers are vulnerable to sexual harassment and violence from both incarcerated people and other officers: correction officers frequently experience violent physical and sexual assaults, including slashings and stabbings.

According to the Preliminary Mayor’s Management Report’s Paid Absence Rates indicator for the first four months of Fiscal 2022, DOC had the highest total absence rate of all city agencies at 26.6 percent while all other agencies ranged between 2 and 10 percent. The Nunez Federal Monitor reported last year that 1,029 officers have been identified as chronically absent. DOC’s budget is driven not by programming, rehabilitation, and services for incarcerated people, but by a correction staff that far outnumbers the jail population.The bulk of DOC’s budget is personal services, a large portion of which is overtime costs; as so many correction officers are out on sick leave, the staff who do come to work have to work double and triple shifts to cover the gaps, driving up overtime costs. The city and DOC must eliminate sick leave abuse to bring more staff back to work, increase security in the jails and decrease overtime spending. Natural attrition is neither fast nor targeted enough to create a workforce equipped to staff the borough-based jails. Eliminating vacant positions and chronically absent staff will save hundreds of millions of dollars that can be reinvested in what actually keeps jails safe: healthcare, programming, treatment, education, restorative justice, and alternatives to incarceration.

I am very concerned about the violence inside our city’s jails, both against incarcerated people and correction officers and staff, and it is alarming to see the union that represents correction officers, the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association (COBA), pushing for policies that undermine safety in the jails. Unlimited sick leave has clearly opened the door for exploitation and abuse, leaving jails understaffed and officers vulnerable to violence. In 2014, an investigation found that allowing officers to wear cargo pants with multiple pockets made it easier for officers to smuggle in contraband, including drugs and weapons. Despite this, COBA has pushed for and succeeded in securing permission for officers to once again wear cargo pants in the jails. While this may seem minor, this reversal occurred during a year when drug-related deaths appear to have increased in the jails. It is clear that COBA is part of the problematic culture of Rikers Island—as the federal monitor, Steve J. Martin, has said: “[Officers] know they can beat the system more often than not. That’s how you develop these cultures where you have frequent instances of excessive force.”

Last month, a Justice Department lawyer determined in an assessment that New York City’s jails are out of compliance with the Nunez consent decree. While the lawyer stopped short of proposing a federal takeover, he found that DOC has yet to comply with the decree’s mandates to curb correction officers’ use of excessive force, improve use of force investigations, provide adequate care for incarcerated young adults, and improve management of the Emergency Services Unit. Despite the persistently dangerous and inhumane conditions on Rikers Island, DOC has slashed the training that new correction officers must complete in half from six months to just three months. We also know that officers are already not completing their existing required training—fewer than one in five officers took a mandated course on preventing suicide in the past year in 2021—so I am deeply concerned that further cutting training will have deadly results. Officers who lack the proper training create not only an unsafe environment for those incarcerated, but are unprepared to enter a job that can be extremely difficult and dangerous.

New York City is not on track to close Rikers Island by 2027. The city forecasts that the jail population will increase to 7,000 by next year, but the four proposed borough-based replacement jails together cannot house more than 3,300 people. Recidivism is a challenge for correction systems across the country, but with NYC’s high cost of living and competitive job market, it is especially difficult for those who have been justice-involved to stay out of jail. However, Mayor Adams is eliminating programs that would help those who are incarcerated get jobs, find housing, receive mental health and substance use treatment, and reconnect with their families after their release to save $17 million. Services providers were blindsided by the announcement that these programs will end abruptly on June 30. Perhaps the most effective way we can reduce the population at Rikers Island is to ensure that once people leave, they do not come back. We know that education and employment programming also reduces violence inside jails. Leaving people idle while inside jail and without support outside is a recipe for disaster—not only for the incarcerated population but officers and other staff as well. The city should also be investing in pre-trial non-incarceral services and alternatives to incarceration, so fewer people enter Rikers Island in the first place. Court backlogs and slow processing of cases also contributes to the rising population—detainees spent an average of 115 days in the jails last year, four times the national average. Across the city’s jails, 86.6 percent of people are just waiting for their cases to conclude. We must ensure that cases and trials are being processed in a timely manner.

In 2021, it cost more than half a million dollars to incarcerate a person at Rikers Island—one of the most expensive jail systems in the country—yet the conditions in the jails remain abysmal. Being incarcerated takes a significant toll on a person’s physical and mental health, and many people on Rikers Island have complex health needs that require specialized care. There is a significant shortage of health staff, often with only one healthcare professional making rounds in multiple units. This harms not only the health of the people incarcerated; the stress of trying to provide quality care to so many people with little support and inadequate pay is directly leading to staff burnout and turnover, as well as recruitment issues. 

Rikers Island is the largest mental health services provider in NYC, and one of the largest in the country. Last year, 19 people died on Rikers Island, at least six of whom died by suicide. More than half of the population at Rikers has a mental health diagnosis, with 16 percent having a serious mental illness. Despite this need, there is a severe shortage of mental health and therapeutic staff. For the entirety of the jail population at Rikers Island, there is only one full-time and three part-time, per-diem psychiatrists. 

The Program to Accelerate Clinical Effectiveness (PACE), which unlike lower-level mental health units, have clinical staff, therapists, and social workers embedded on-site, has proven to reduce self-harm, increase medication adherence, and decrease incidents of violence. The de Blasio Administration planned to expand PACE capacity, but there has been no word from the Adams Administration if that plan will come to fruition. Meanwhile, many who would benefit from a PACE placement languish in general population or overcrowded mental observation units. 

The Department of Correction has historically used “decontamination showers,” which is a shower inside of a very small, locked cage for purposes of isolation and punishment, sometimes leaving people inside the cages for hours. Elijah Muhammad, the tenth person to die at Rikers in 2022, was locked in a so-called decontamination shower for six and a half hours just weeks before he died by suicide. DOC has claimed both that these showers are necessary for decontamination following the use of chemical sprays and that the cages serve as a “secure and safe place” to send people after a violent incident. While Commissioner Molina has repeatedly stated that there is no use of solitary confinement on Rikers Island, correction officers continue to use these shower cages to isolate incarcerated people. If a shower is being used only for the purposes of decontamination, there is no reason why it needs to be in a locked cage. Mr. Muhammad, in fact, had not been sprayed with any chemical before being placed in the shower. Similarly, if there truly is no use of solitary confinement in city jails, DOC should support the passage of my bill, Intro 0549-2022, which would eliminate the practice of solitary confinement. I join the Board of Correction in calling for the immediate dismantling of these shower cages, as the existence of these cages are not making anyone on either side of the bars safer, just as the current uses of isolation on Rikers Island has not ended violence inside the jails.

Lastly, the city should increase the headcount for the Board of Correction, a nine-person, non-judicial oversight board that carries out independent oversight and enacts regulations to support safer, fairer, smaller, and more humane NYC jails. The presence of the BOC in NYC jails is more important than ever, as DOC recently revoked their right to access remote video. While Commissioner Molina has testified that BOC’s investigators have access to view videos at DOC’s headquarters during business hours, BOC has countered that DOC is not responding to requests in a timely manner. For example, when, on April 6 of this year, a person incarcerated on Rikers Island started a fire in his cell which resulted in the hospitalization of 15 people, DOC did not respond to the BOC’s requests for videos related to this incident.

It is also important to ensure the dedicated oversight body is as accessible as possible for as many as possible. The inability to consistently maintain connection to livestream is a serious issue tied to available resources. BOC meetings are hybrid, held both in person and via Zoom, and multiple meetings have been disrupted or canceled due to technical difficulties. At this week’s BOC meeting, chair Dwayne Sampson moved to end the meeting following issues with the stream, and a member of the public and longtime criminal justice advocate expressed frustration at the way BOC has handled their canceled meetings. In response, Sampson ordered an officer to physically remove the advocate from the meeting. While her removal was thwarted by other advocates and members of the public gathered around her, this attempt to remove a person from the meeting for being critical of the board was unacceptable and highly inappropriate.

As lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson wrote, “The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated.” I look forward to working with the Adams Administration and the City Council in creating a more safe and just city.

Thank you.

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams delivered his annual 'State of the People' address on Thursday evening, with this year's speech focused on the state of public safety in New York City, threats to that safety, and how to protect it through the city's budget and policies. His address was followed by a televised town hall session with New Yorkers, moderated by award-winning journalist Cheryl Wills.

Video of the event is available on CUNY TV and the Public Advocate's website, and a full transcript of his address as delivered is below.

Thank you, and Good evening. Thank you for joining us for what I know will be an honest conversation with New Yorkers here in this room and around the city about our greatest needs and greatest opportunities in this moment.

Throughout this week my office has held events to engage the community around some of the most urgent issues we face as the city – on housing, education, transportation, incarceration. And tonight I want to focus on an issue that is at the top of New Yorkers’ minds and media almost daily. As we discuss the state of the people, it’s past time to discuss the state of public safety.

The People have a right to be safe, and the People have a right to feel safe. Our government has a role to play in protecting each of these rights, in protecting public safety for New Yorkers. Yet the state of public safety in New York is uncertain at best.

Safety and security are at the front of New Yorkers’ minds and the heart of their concerns. Physical safety, yes, but also financial security. In an affordability crisis that has made our city the most expensive in the world, half of all New York City families are unable to afford even the minimum costs of living here. People can’t make ends meet, or see an end to the compounding crises that brought us to this point. Every day on our screens or our streets we see the consequences of crises and cruelty – in gun violence, in homelessness, in pain and poverty.

And elected officials and media have played a role in fueling and fanning false perceptions of public safety – despite the fact that New York is among the safest big cities in the nation. Statistics mean nothing to the victims of crime, I know, and they have done little to calm the citywide anxiety around public safety to this point. The truth is that right now, New Yorkers are scared, and their fears are real.

I’m scared, too. 

I’m scared, because I think we have an opportunity now, finally, after years and even decades of resistance, to explore, reimagine, and implement a more comprehensive and effective public safety effort. I think we have a moment when people are listening, a moment when we could be united behind a holistic approach to producing public safety. When the premises and programs we have advocated for so many years could make their greatest impact.

And I’m scared that we will miss this moment, or more specifically, misuse it.

Instead of using this heightened awareness of and concern about public safety to get at the true root causes, in the last week, months, and years I’ve seen leaders respond by pushing policies that prey on fears rather than treating their underlying causes.

They often speak about and act on public safety in ways that fuel those fears instead of quelling them, whether out of a cynical effort to drive a narrative, a desperate response to headlines and criticism, or even a misguided effort to truly provide support. But this rhetoric does more damage to public safety than any of the policies they oppose. 

If part of government’s responsibility is to help New Yorkers FEEL safe, our leaders are failing.

But what about actually BEING safer? In order to improve public safety, we have to align policies, programs, and funding. The state budget was just passed. The city budget is in its final weeks of negotiation. And I am scared that we will continue patterns of the past, which rely on a faulty notion and narrative about what public safety is.

First and foremost, public safety is not simply about law enforcement or the criminal legal system. That’s an attitude and a narrative that has brought us to the place we are today and led to policies that inflicted decades of harm, policies people are still apologizing for today. 

Law enforcement has a role to play in public safety, yes. They are a partner in public safety – but their role has to be limited in scope and grounded in accountability. Yet we ask our police to do too much, to take on responsibilities best left to other agencies better equipped for them. 

Even the areas they are best equipped for, such as immediate threats of gun violence, can only be achieved in collaboration with community-led solutions. The role we give police in public safety is overwhelming, and the MONEY we give them is overwhelming – and in our budget priorities, we need to align spending so other services have what they need.

No one inciting public safety panic today would count the historically highest-policed communities in our city among the safest. Still, people oversimplify and equate policing and public safety today because that’s what they’re told by leaders, and reinforced by media and culture.

Over time we have created a culture of stigmatizing rather than supporting people in need. A culture of fear and dehumanization that means people are shot on suspicion for going to a neighbor’s house. One where a man in desperate need of food, housing, and mental healthcare is strangled on the subway. One where it’s controversial to say those actions are wrong. One where people are viewed as a threat because of their identity, or their income, or systemic circumstance that damages their own sense of safety. That is not something you can meet with more police or more restrictive bails laws, and it’s not public safety.

We have to ask – What IS safety?

Safety is coming home to housing that has heat and hot water, not mold or roaches. It’s knowing that you can pay rent, and won’t face unjust eviction or unethical rent increases, that your home is secure from foreclosure or deed theft. A budget that doesn’t increase the number of inspectors, one that doesn’t adequately support the physical and mental health of tenants, forcing more people onto streets and into shelters, is a threat to public safety.

Safety is knowing you can send your children to schools throughout their educational journey which meet their needs in the moment and provide continued opportunities to learn and grow, from early childhood through to adulthood. It’s knowing that children have access to the services that will keep them in school and out of danger. It’s access to youth jobs for students, and fair-wage jobs for their families. A budget that cuts public school seats, cuts social workers, and focuses on punitive practices, rather than restorative ones is a threat to public safety.

Safety is living without the threat of cancer, asthma, and other health issues caused by pollutants that cloud our city. It’s traveling that city on rapid, reliable public transportation, and moving through the streets without the fear of traffic violence. It’s the security of homes and neighborhoods that are equipped to protect against ever-more-frequent catastrophic weather events. A budget that fails to invest in green infrastructure, green transportation, or green spaces, one that does not increase safety inspections of existing, aging buildings and infrastructure, is a threat to public safety.

Safety is access to services and supports for mental health, to treating mental health concerns and preventing dangerous mental health crises. It’s the confidence that if you need help in a mental health emergency, you’ll be met with peers and providers, not just police. It’s the comfort that services, not stigma, will be the response of not just the government but those around you – that a crisis of public health will be met with sufficient resources on an individual and systemic level. A budget that focuses on removing, detaining, criminalizing, and dehumanizing people in crisis and fails to provide adequate personnel or programming Is a threat to public safety.

Safety is access to common-sense protections, adaptations, and healthcare as we continue to recover from a pandemic that we are learning to live with, but cannot ignore.

Safety is the ability to come here seeking asylum and be met with the compassion and resources needed – to find relief in hardship, not to be treated as a burden or a bargaining chip. It’s knowing that your needs won’t be pitted against the needs of others – and a budget that positions marginalized people against one another is a threat to public safety.

Safety is knowing that your government works on your behalf – and that it is working at all. That the staff, services, and systems which power our city and empower its residents are strong. A budget that prioritizes austerity for the sake of image, that puts looking good over doing good, is a threat to public safety.

With this budget, we have an opportunity to invest in public safety policies that will meet our mandate to help New Yorkers be safe and feel safe, and last beyond any news cycle or administration.

This is the real work of public safety. It’s less easily accepted or explained in an environment of short headlines and long political campaign seasons.

But it’s work we have to commit to, and stand by. We can’t bend to the political environment or prevailing narrative – we have to shape it, and demand our leaders do the same. With all populations, in all communities across our city.

New Yorkers have a right to go to school without fear of being struck by a stray bullet. A right to walk the street without being harassed or intimidated. A right to play and shop and work and live free from the threat or fear of danger. But we have to ask the right questions to implement the right solutions – what are the root causes? What’s truly going to keep people safe? Locking up the communities and children of the people we criminalized in past decades, or lifting those same communities and children up?

And scapegoating, strawmanning equivocating, dismissing proven policies as “woke” or people pushing for change as agitators to be ignored – that’s not public safety. That’s public posturing. 

I’m proud to be an agitator, and I am agitated now, as I see words and decisions that undermine the safety of our neighbors in order to save a few dollars, or to save face. For all the purported focus on safety, this proposed budget is dangerous. And I will continue to push back, on behalf of the people.

Because even in the face of uncertainty, adversity, and fear, I remain hopeful. I remain hopeful that conversations with this administration will lead to change of policies, of minds, and of the narrative. That conversation with New Yorkers will help to build consensus and coalition around true public safety – a dialogue I’m excited to have tonight, through the budget season, and beyond as we build a movement. Because when it comes to the state of the people, in solidarity, there is safety – and when we can produce true, sustained safety, all New Yorkers – the agitated and the fearful, the hopeful and the exhausted, the uneasy and the undeterred can find peace. 

"Bill Perkins was a force in New York politics and a champion in and of the Harlem community he served. Throughout the city and up to Albany, his impact and example have helped to shape New York and inspire many, in the footprint of a legacy that stretches across three decades. He shepherded new leaders that will carry on that legacy, one of ensuring the Black community’s voices are heard and heeded in government.

"For more than thirty years in elected office, he boldly pushed for progress on issues that the next generation now carries forward. It was a privilege to work alongside him in the City Council, to learn from him and see his commitment to his community reflected in the trust and support of the people he represented. I pray for peace, comfort, and strength for all of his loved ones and the Harlem neighbors he cherished, in the wake of this loss."

"It was a year ago today that a killer motivated by racist hatred and empowered by access to guns took the lives of ten Black people on a Saturday afternoon as they shopped for groceries on the East Side of Buffalo. If it feels like longer, that’s because the year since has seen constant gun violence, with mass shootings happening near-daily across the country.

"The spotlight moves on, but the community cannot – a year later, they are still reeling, still grieving, still seeking answers and solutions. When the headlines moved on to the next preventable, predictable tragedy, they were at risk of being left without the attention and resources needed to cope with the trauma of this shooting or build up an area that has long suffered from underinvestment and the public safety threats that entails. While funding and other commitments have thankfully been made toward these ends, it’s critical that there is ongoing, sustained effort to make sure support stays with this community and others like it.

"It’s Mother's Day today, and my prayers are with the mothers who have lost their children to the rampant epidemic of gun violence that saw an outbreak in a Buffalo market. My prayers are with the people who have lost their own mothers to gun violence. And my prayers are with the mothers who send their children into the world each day who live with the fear of tragedy striking. We owe it to those we have lost, those left to grieve, and those who have to worry, to invest in communities to prevent, not just respond to, the gun violence that devastates families and communities alike."

Today the New York City Council voted to pass Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams’ Worst Landlord Law to help prevent fraudulent repairs by bad landlords and increase accountability for failure to correct hazardous violations, including by increasing financial penalties. The bill is part of the Worst Landlord Accountability Act, a two-bill package which comes out of the Public Advocate’s annual Worst Landlord Watchlist.

Within the current system, landlords are often able to self-certify their own repairs without city verification – and frequently, they falsely certify that violations have been corrected. The legislation passed today will restrict bad actors who own the worst buildings in the city from engaging in this deceptive practice.

“"Last year’s Worst Landlord Watchlist saw the most violations in its history as buildings deteriorate and rents rise under landlords who put profit over people,” said Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams ahead of the vote. “They exploit loopholes to shamelessly dodge accountability and avoid repairs, while tenants suffer. Passing this Worst Landlord law will prevent the worst owners in the city from self-certifying repairs that haven’t been made, and increase penalties for failing to fix violations so that fines aren’t just part of the cost of doing business. Our list is designed in part to shame the worst landlords in the city — but for owners who are shameless in their negligence, this law will hold them to account and deliver relief to countless tenants facing unlivable conditions.”

Intro 583-A, which was passed by overwhelming majority today, would increase the penalties for many violations issued by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development related to registration failures, hazardous conditions, and false certification. In addition, HPD would be required to annually identify 100 buildings based on criteria such as the number of hazardous or immediately hazardous violations that have been falsely certified as corrected. Hazardous or immediately hazardous violations issued to buildings on the list would not be deemed corrected unless HPD has attempted at least two re-inspections, or those violations are excluded from the calculation for identifying the 100 buildings.

The Public Advocate's Worst Landlord Watchlist spotlights the top 100 most egregiously negligent landlords in New York City as determined by widespread and repeated violations in buildings on the list. These bills, the second of which would mandate faster inspections and repairs for the most hazardous violations, are aimed at correcting and preventing disingenuous tactics used by some of those landlords in order to remove themselves from the list.

Together, the legislation in the Worst Landlord Accountability Act will help tenants get the repairs they need, make the worst landlords pay for their negligence and deception, and show that there are consequences for the conduct that puts landlords on the Watchlist.