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Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Matt Katz, reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom, and I'm filling in for Brian today. I spend much of my time in the newsroom reporting on the jails at Rikers Island, and there's been some news in recent days, controversial and a bit confusing news, that we're going to dive into right now.

Over the weekend, Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in the jails, and he issued this unusual executive order to stop a law from being implemented. It was about to go into effect. Hours after he issued, this order was supposed to go into effect. The law banned the practice of holding detainees in solitary confinement. Adams essentially scaled back this law. This law had been passed twice by the City Council, and that has obviously outraged the City Council.

Joining us now to talk through this issue and how Council might respond is Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who represents a Manhattan district that includes Greenwich Village, Lower East Side, Union Square, Murray Hill, and Kips Bay. Councilmember, thanks for being here. I appreciate it.

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: Thanks for having me. Good morning.

Matt Katz: Good morning. Listeners, do you have any experience with this issue, were you held in solitary confinement, or do you know someone who has been? Are you a correction officer who thinks the City Council is interfering with operations of the jails, putting detainees and officers alike in danger? Give us a call or send us a text at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Any detainees on Rikers listening who want to call in to talk about solitary confinement at the jail, give us a call 212-433-9692.

Councilmember Rivera, you were chair of the Committee on Criminal Justice when this bill passed last year. You're a second sponsor of the bill. How did you come to this issue? What's your background here as it relates to understanding this practice of using solitary confinement to punish and isolate detainees who commit violence?

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: Well, even before I became a councilwoman, I was involved in the Close Rikers campaign, which is now a legal mandate to close the jails on Rikers Island by 2027. We can talk a little bit about how that timeline is actually behind schedule. There are a number of things we have to be doing in order to get to that point and to finally implement real reforms in the jail.

In my experience as a City Councilwoman, and of course as chair and member of the Criminal Justice Committee, it's clear from reporting, from testimonials, from survivors, justice-impacted people and their families that overall Rikers Island is a physical and humanitarian disaster and is failing to serve its restorative role for the incarcerated. Solitary confinement it's cruel, it's traumatic, and as of Sunday, it's illegal. This law was passed because there is a brutal history and accounting in this place.

This was one hopeful solution to stemming the cycle of violence there and in our communities. We all agree that everyone deserves to be safe, and that includes the corrections officers and the people in custody. Research shows that even short times in isolation can have long-lasting and damaging effects. It makes no one safer. People that are in solitary have serious health impacts, higher rates of recidivism, are likelier to die, commit suicide, engage in self-harm, even overdose.

The mayor has had two and a half years to make Rikers safe for staff and incarcerated people, and right now, he is standing in the way of implementing what is a data-driven policy supported by many, many people. We want to move forward. True safety does require more than just jails, it certainly requires for our branches of government to respect and work with one another.

Matt Katz: You passed the bill last year, he vetoes it, and then, I think, even by a larger margin, Council overrides the veto. Then what happens in the intervening months until this past weekend? Were there conversations with the administration and the Council trying to figure out a way forward since they were clearly still opposed to this?

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: It really took us all aback, considering that it came in a day before these measures were to take place. The one thing that comes to mind is that the mayor has been very consistent in finding workarounds. There are many examples, whether it's like CityFHEPS and a law that we passed to increase access to housing vouchers. There are many examples, but this one, using a state of emergency to avoid following the law, actually undermines our city's public safety.

It represents the latest example of an administration that wants to disregard the law passed by the City Council. We pass the law, he vetoes it, we override the veto with, as you said, a larger margin of votes, and still, to avoid complying with the law the day before it takes place, this is an unprecedented abuse of mayoral power. New Yorkers should see this for what it is. It's unprecedented, it's a misuse of power, and it's hypocritical.

We want to make sure that we're clear in our messaging as well that we went to great lengths to discuss this bill with so many stakeholders at the table, and we have to reform this place. We have to get to a point where we can close the facilities, and banning solitary confinement, in any way that you define it, is important to create a more humane space as well.

Matt Katz: Tell us a little bit about what the bill does. Can you get a little bit into the specifics in terms of how it prevents officers from putting detainees in solitary confinement?

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: Sure. Well, I want to bring up two things specifically I feel the mayor included in his executive order that I want to clear up. There is the four-hour de-escalation. This law that was passed by the Council, Local Law 42, it includes broad safety provisions that allows for continued separation following that four-hour de-escalation period. What that means is the law allows the Department of Correction to separate individuals from the general population if they pose a threat to themselves or others, and it allows the Department of Correction, DOC to place an individual in restrictive housing. They can utilize the escalation confinement when needed or during emergency lock-ins.

Then the other part that is brought up are restraints. This law provides limits as well as agency discretion on the use of restraints. We want people to know that when we are passing a bill, we are very responsible and thoughtful in getting there. Contrary to what Mayor Adams is saying, DOC is permitted to restrain individuals in their custody. The administration has repeatedly asserted that this law prohibits restraining incarcerated individuals.

It does not. We want to move forward in implementing this reform in addition to many, many other things that include investments in pre-trial services and alternatives to incarceration and reducing the population and really addressing the mental health crisis that is present inside and outside of the jails.

Matt Katz: I'm Matt Katz. I'm speaking with Councilmember Carlina Rivera about the emergency executive order. I was trying to figure out the right words for it because it was such an unusual thing, the emergency executive order that the mayor put in place over the weekend to scale back a bill that bans solitary confinement at Rikers Island jails. I know from my own reporting on this issue that the definition of solitary confinement is really at the heart of this issue. The Council and this administration are just working with fundamentally different definitions from what I can tell.

Council Member, you call this a ban on solitary confinement, but the mayor says solitary confinement actually hasn't existed at Rikers for years. I want to play a clip from a defiant mayor at a press conference yesterday. We did reach out to City Hall. They were not able to have someone come on the air today to respond, so we're going to play this 30-second clip from the mayor.

Eric Adams: Inmates are saying we want to be safe. When I visit Rikers Island, who, by the way, visited Rikers Island more than any mayor in the history of the city, and I speak with inmates and I speak with correction officers, they just want to be safe. I have an obligation to make them safe like I make people who walk the streets of this city safe. That is what this is about. Those who are saying we're trying to reverse solitary confinement, you can't reverse what's not here. We don't have solitary confinement. We're not trying to reverse the law.

Matt Katz: Councilmember, I know you've been to Rikers. You're very familiar with this issue. How do you define solitary confinement? What do you think the difference here is? Why do you think what the correction department says is not solitary but the council sees it as solitary.

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: The mayor says that there is no solitary, but this is a place that's notorious for violence. What this law would do is place minimum standards to address abuse and create a more humane and effective approach to rehabilitation and support. He's used the phrase a holistic approach to public safety. That is exactly what we are trying to do here. Just in November, Gothamist reported that New Yorkers accused of failing to pay child support were locked up at Rikers for 23 hours a day. That is not how you rehabilitate a person.

How you rehabilitate a person is that you ensure that there are services available, it's pretrial services, it's reentry services, and there needs to be an investment in therapeutic beds for those who are experiencing mental health crises. His administration has even cut programs meant to divert youth from the criminal legal system. We have to do all of these things and ensure that we are not leaving someone locked up for hours and hours on end alone in the dark and without any access. That is the whole point of also this just transition for dedicated city workers when we go to the smaller borough-based jails to be closer to community.

The definition has always been a point of contention, but that's why we went through to make sure that we were detailed in our definition and in our expectations, and still allowing for agency discretion. We want people to know that it is absolutely in everyone's best interest for everyone to be safe, whether that's corrections officers or the people in custody. I just want to remind folks that the people in custody, most of whom are presumed innocent with nearly 90% of the people at Rikers being held there pretrial.

Matt Katz: David in Inwood is on the line. Hi, David. You're on with Carlina Rivera.

David: Hello guys. How are you? This is a very interesting topic. I'm glad you guys are touching base on it. I could tell you that 20 years ago I was a resident of Rikers Island in one of its worst housing units, HDM. I experienced solitary confinement. However, on this thing here, I actually fault both the mayor and the city council for not really coming together on some middle ground. For example, and I'm trying to be brief, you just can't have a tool, and believe me, I've experienced both sides where you eliminate solitary confinement.

For example, if you have a violent inmate who's just hell-bent on assaulting the staff or other people, you have a situation where he, for example, throws feces or urine on staff repeatedly, daily. Every time a staff member walks by, that happens. Now, what do you do in a case like that? I'd like to know what the city council would recommend [inaudible 00:13:15]. Yes, some people have been unfairly or unjustifiably put in solitary confinement. In ending, I'll just say there is middle ground here.

I think the mayor and the city council are going to have to come up with some amendments where you don't totally eliminate the tool of taking somebody out of the way for their safety and the safety of the staff and not just for four hours, but also more monitoring where corrections can't just throw somebody in there and forget about them for three days. There has to be some more middle ground. I'm somewhat sympathetic to and I'm not a big supporter of you just can't tell in that kind of situation that's it. No more lockdown or they call it Keep Lock, that's the term, for more than four hours. I just don't think it's the reality or realistic.

Matt Katz: The bill was four hours for de-escalation to calm the situation down. From your memory of your experience there, David, you think that's not enough time?

David: I really don't think it's enough time because when you're so ampt up or when you're in a situation, I would've thought a minimum of 24 to 48 hours. Guys have been on Keep Lock or in solitary for months and months and weeks and weeks. The city council, reducing that to even 72 hours is a far improvement. I'd like to say they'd use the term guys could stand on their heads for 72 hours and knowing that it's really easy.

Many, many people have spent weeks and weeks and months and months. I'm not saying it has to be a case-by-case basis, but four hours it does-- First of all, just from a staffing point of view, moving them in. You put them in solitary for four hours, now you have to have at least two escorts to take them out and bring them to a housing unit. It's just not feasible.

Matt Katz: Thank you, David.

David: The Department of Corrections doesn't have an endless budget. You have to look into that. We all want utopia inside our prisons and outside in society, but sometimes it's just not attainable. I just think here, and I'll let you go, there has to be more middle ground on this.

Matt Katz: Appreciate it. Thank you very much, David. Carlina Rivera, I'm just going to take one more call and then get some responses from you. This is also somebody I think is going to be critical of the bill. Who was I looking for here? Caller's from Belleville, New Jersey. Tom in Belleville. Sorry about that. Tom, thanks for calling in.

Tom: Okay, great. All right. Yes, I'm retired 30 years, but I did work all the facilities on Rikers Island, including like the past caller just said, the house of detention for men. I had punitive and administrative segregation as my steady housing unit.

Matt Katz: Oh, okay.

Tom: I have a little bit of experience with it but I did 20 years as a correction officer.

Matt Katz: Did you think the environment that you were working in was that humane? Do you think that it was in need of reforms and if so, do you think these reforms are appropriate?

Tom: All right, look, this is different times now from what I hear. We didn't have gangs, we were in control. It's a totally different world now. As far as the necessity of having punitive segregation and administrative segregation, yes, we need that for extreme situations. You need to have something for extreme situations or there's no possible substitute for punitive segregation. The point is these inmates were constantly monitored. We had inmates that were paid to monitor them plus the correction officers every 30 minutes would have to make a tour. As far as them being in the dark and all this stuff, I just want to say something about--

Matt Katz: Please man, I want to get the councilmember to respond. Yes, please.

Tom: All right, good. All right, as far as being inhumane, how about what the inmate did to get into punitive? Couldn't that be considered inhumane? These people cut each other up, stab each other.

Matt Katz: The inhumanity that detainees might commit or have been alleged to commit is different than if the state, the government is acting in an inhumane fashion, which is what many people believe solitary confinement to be.

Tom: You really think it's punishment? The guy is in a cell with bars, he has visibility of the outside. He's just going to be isolated as far as mobility, but he still can come out and he still could have an hour of recreation and it's only for extreme situations. Unless they could come up with something that could substitute for extreme situations, I'd like to hear that.

Matt Katz: Thank you very much, Tom. Appreciate the perspective. Go ahead, Councilmember.

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: Yes. I just want to say that I want to thank him of course for his service because it's not an easy job to do. Certainly not because corrections officers are themselves unsafe. There are records of assault on these officers very, very often, frequently and we want to address that as well. To David, thank you for sharing your experience. I hear what you're saying about finding a middle ground. This is why we put our law in place because the current system isn't working. It's had these same statistics and rates of violence since 30 years ago. The excessive force, the stabbings, the self-harm, our law puts safety in place where we deem there is danger.

The bill is attempting to define that middle ground between safety for everyone, allowing for separation without jeopardizing anyone's safety. Solitary is not a tool that works. That's why what we've proposed is a data-driven policy that is supported by justice-impacted families. People that have lost their loved ones in solitary confinement. It's supported by advocates, it's supported by the healthcare professionals that work inside of the jails.

For those extreme situations, this law does have really details in there to allow discretion for corrections to do their job and keep everyone safe, those extreme situations and who is in solitary. I gave that example. We saw people that were in solitary for 23 hours a day who were accused of failing to pay child support. There are so many stories coming out of this place that are horrific and tragic.

The trauma here is just in a cycle. We are trying to meet the mayor halfway. We've certainly tried to engage in conversations on reforms. We've passed legislation to create jail population review teams to reduce the population, to get to a place where it is manageable. We still have a better ratio of correction officer to the incarcerated than any other system in the country.

We want to make sure that we're also hiring and doing the things that we need to do in order to implement these laws safely. The council is going to keep moving forward. It's reviewing its legal options to ensure full compliance with the law and to prevent further death and violence as a result of prolonged isolation and confinement. We'll continue to hold every agency accountable and we want to ensure that we're moving forward, and really investing in the services and the programs, and the spaces that work.

Matt Katz: Just in regards to what the last caller was saying, in the law that you passed, there's still four hours to confine someone who was involved in violence. That cap has been lifted. There's also restrictive housing units where in your law, it was just the requirement that people in those units get seven hours out of their cells to do activities every day. The mayor has lifted that requirement.

He also canceled the provision in the law that said no one could be held in that restrictive housing for more than 15 days in a row. You mentioned reviewing your legal options. The council has given speaker Adrienne Adams the power to sue over this issue. Is that going to happen?

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: Well, we have seen this before, unfortunately, when it came to housing legislation that we passed in the past, that we also had to override a mayoral veto. We did so overwhelmingly. We just find that this specific example, utilizing the state of emergency, issuing an executive order, it's a slippery slope. He's setting a precedent where he can disregard laws that he disagrees with, with a claim that they will adversely affect public safety.

Of course, we try to include as many voices as possible, and he is an important voice in the conversation around improving public safety. He is not the voice. We are elected representatives. We engage in constant conversation, hear testimonies. We had a very, very long hearing that I chaired for about eight hours on this issue alone. We continue to take feedback and of course, constructive criticism. That's why these conversations right now are so important. He isn't just engaging in the practice that is trying to grant some unilateral power. We will not abide by that.

Matt Katz: You're not willing to say yet whether or not a lawsuit is happening. You're still reviewing your options.

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: We're still reviewing our options and we've made this particular issue a priority. I think speaker Adrienne Adams has been clear in that. Whether it's her state of the City speech or our own actions taken by the council to show that we are really trying to do what we can to improve the conditions there. The mayor has not taken any steps to adhere to the legal mandate to close Rikers. This is just one example in that long series of bad ideas.

Matt Katz: I want to get one other caller in. Dr. Vee in Brooklyn, longtime activist, very outspoken on this particular issue. Dr. Vee, thanks so much for calling in. We have about 30 seconds, but really want to hear what you have to say.

Dr. Vee: Well, peace and blessings, everyone. Can you hear me?

Matt Katz: We can. Yes.

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: Yes. We can.

Dr. Vee: Well, if I only have 30 seconds, that's not much, Matt, but I just want to thank [crosstalk].

Matt Katz: I'll give you a minute, Dr. Vee. Go for it.

Dr. Vee: I just want to thank you Councilmember Rivera for picking up the torch as chair and pushing this bill with public advocate. I also want to highlight, I always give praise to where it's due. BOC, this is nothing new. Ending solitary confinement because former Councilmember Daniel Dromm actually brought a bill forward that was passed January 2015 to end solitary and we did it for 16, 21 year-olds.

You see the Jails Action Coalition, we actually formed in December 2011 because of the barbaric conditions that go on in Rikers Island. When we talk about public safety, let me be very clear. Last month, DOC staff actually reached out to me so that I could insist an officer who was sexually assaulted by another officer. This month, I am now helping the family of Charisma Jones.

I say that because when we talk about safety, everyone behind the walls has to be safe. When we talk about safety, we need to understand that this is the same department that was caught on tape laughing at Layleen.This is the same department that lied on Mary's cause to death. This is the same department that has now denied Charisma Jones medical access. What is going on in solitary confinement? Can we trust that officers are going to follow minimum standards? This bill wouldn't have even have been brought forward if officers were following minimums.

I just truly want to thank Speaker Adams for even bringing [unintelligible 00:26:53] now forward so that council could vote on it. I want to thank the supermajority and council for making this a reality because of their constituent's needs. I want to thank the council that came back and overall, the mayor's veto. It's asinine to think that someone who is of my own skin kind would deny proper minimum standards to other people because they're detained. So often officers have been found to not be honest. I've worked behind the wall for many years in many, many, many occupations and volunteer positions.

I know for a fact that the voices that need to be heard are often not believed, are often not heard. It takes all of us in our positions to make change. Yes, it does mean that DOC has to work with council and that the commissioners have to work and the mayors have to work all together, but they have to come to the table because the same way advocates were able to push this bill through, it's the same opportunities that DOC had to show up and do the work.

Each and every time, you know what they did? They barbarically verbally abused us. They taunted the mother of Brandon Rodriguez on steps of City Hall. They taunted the sister of Elijah Muhammad on the steps of City Hall instead of coming to the table to demand what they needed. The time is to get it right, to have real leadership.

Matt Katz: Thank you very much, Dr. Vee. By way of background, Dr. Vee is a [crosstalk] Chaplain and has worked inside and outside Rikers for many years. Some of the names that she mentioned are detainees who have died recently at Rikers, including the most recent Charisma Jones, who was 23, who died earlier this month after an illness at Rikers Island. Councilmember Rivera, we do have to go.

Before I go, can you give me a little update on where you see things in terms of the closure of Rikers? It is supposed to close three years from this month, 2027. The population there is still too high for these number of detainees to be moved to the four new jails that are being constructed around the city. Also, jail construction is delayed. Will the mayor or whoever is in office at that time follow this city council law, the one that actually calls for closing Rikers? Will that happen? What's the status?

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: Well, the future of Rikers is clear in that there is a legal mandate for it to close by 2027. So far, we see that the project is behind schedule. In the meantime, we have to make investments in the services that I mentioned, pretrial services, alternatives to incarceration, the therapeutic beds. We have to make sure that we are using jail population review teams to reduce the population.

It should be the first thing on the list. We have to create efficiencies in court production to reduce the population, that's so critical. Avoiding laws, neglecting to invest in even cutting services is really going to prolong our arrival in seeing any improvements, but also getting to that transition of a smaller network of jails, which is on the horizon. I just want to add to Dr. Vee, I just want to thank her and the advocates for getting us to this point because if the jails were operating in a humane or even efficient way, there wouldn't be a decades-long movement to reform Rikers to protect the staff and the incarcerated.

We have to get to the finish line. It's going to take a while. We're going to have to hold mayoral administrations accountable to get this right finally. It's good to know that we have a coalition of people that want to work with the mayor. We just need him to meet us halfway.

Matt Katz: Councilmember Carlina Rivera was one of the sponsors of the Bill banning solitary confinement that the mayor has since rolled back. Councilmember, thanks so much for coming on Brian Lehrer Show to talk about Rikers and all things related to this issue.

Councilmember Carlina Rivera: Thank you.

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