The Untold Story: Travon Explores the Humanitarian Crisis on Rikers Island

Summary

Podcast Summary: Still My Baby – "The Untold Story: Travon Explores the Humanitarian Crisis on Rikers Island"

Release Date: October 25, 2022
Hosts: Lemonada Media & Campaign Zero
Episode Focus: The humanitarian crisis at Rikers Island, New York City's notorious pretrial detention facility.

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Introduction

In this pivotal episode of Still My Baby, host Trayvon Free delves deep into the ongoing humanitarian crisis at Rikers Island. Taking over from Jay Ellis, Trayvon introduces the severity of conditions within the facility and sets the stage for an in-depth exploration of systemic failures, personal stories, and potential solutions.

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Personal Testimonies: Vidal Guzman's Experience

Vidal Guzman, a central figure in the episode, recounts his harrowing experiences at Rikers Island:

• Arrival and Immediate Conditions
  [00:03]
  "Our legs was chained up, our hands is chained up... Welcome to Gladiator School," Vidal describes the intimidating and violent initiation into the jail's brutal environment.

• Daily Trauma and Violence
  [05:47]
  "I used to wake up from my sleep sweating, just looking around me, thinking that someone's going to attack me."

• Impact of Overcrowding and Mismanagement
  [06:01]
  "Close to 26 to 27 people have died in the past 19 months because of all different types of issues."

Vidal's narrative underscores the psychological and physical toll Rikers takes on its inhabitants, many of whom await trial without conviction.

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Current State of Rikers Island

The episode paints a grim picture of Rikers Island's current conditions:

• Facility Overview
  Rikers Island, opened in 1932, serves as a pretrial detention center, holding over 5,000 individuals, many of whom have not been convicted of any crime. Its proximity to Midtown Manhattan juxtaposes the inhumane conditions within.

• Increased Mortality Rates
  [06:26]
  Trayvon Free lists recent deaths: "Tars Youngblood, George Pagan, Herman Diaz..." highlighting preventable deaths due to inadequate medical care and supervision.

• Structural and Administrative Failures
  [12:25]
  "People assume Rikers is this terrible place they've heard about for, like, terrible people convicted of heinous crimes. But the crazy thing is Rikers is a pretrial Det. Center."

---

Attempts at Reform: Consent Decree and Federal Monitor

Efforts to reform Rikers have been ongoing but largely ineffective:

• Kalief Browder's Tragic Story
  Kalief Browder's prolonged detention without trial and subsequent suicide epitomize the system's failures. [10:08]

• Consent Decree and Monitoring
  [23:25]
  A 2014 lawsuit by Mark Nunez led to a consent decree requiring Rikers to implement several reforms. However, ongoing monitor reports indicate little to no improvement, with continued violence and mismanagement.

• Financial Mismanagement
  [10:56]
  "Spending per person has continued to grow and now totals more than half a million dollars per person in custody per year," reveals the inefficiency and excessive costs associated with maintaining Rikers.

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Proposed Solution: Federal Receivership

The episode explores the concept of federal receivership as a potential remedy:

• Definition and Precedents
  [15:26]
  A receivership involves court-appointed experts taking control of failing public institutions. The Cook County juvenile detention system's success story serves as a benchmark.

• Potential Benefits
  [16:54]
  Hernandez Stroud from the Brennan Center for Justice explains that receivership can implement necessary changes swiftly, something local leadership has struggled to achieve.

• Challenges and Timeframe
  [33:57]
  Implementing a receivership could take up to seven years, similar to the Cook County case. Despite the lengthy process, it promises more substantial and enforceable reforms compared to current measures.

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Union Influence and Staffing Issues

Unions play a significant role in hindering reforms:

• Unlimited Sick Leave Policy
  [27:25]
  "If an officer doesn't come to work and doesn't call, even if it puts someone else in a terrible situation... it can take years before that AWOL officer can be fired."

• Hiring Practices
  [26:28]
  Restrictions prevent hiring managerial staff from outside New York City's system, perpetuating a cycle of inadequate leadership and entrenched toxic culture.

• Consequences of Understaffing
  [29:32]
  "Not enough people to take you to visit your family... not enough staff to distribute toenail clippers... not enough staff to take you to a medical appointment."

These policies result in operational chaos, leading to unmet medical needs, increased violence, and numerous preventable deaths.

---

Historical Context and Vidal's Advocacy

Vidal Guzman provides historical insights and underscores the necessity for systemic change:

• Historical Significance of Rikers Island
  [40:30]
  "Rikers island is named from someone named Richard Rikers, who was a part of the kidnapped club where he used to kidnap free black people and sell them back into slavery."

• Advocacy and Personal Transformation
  Vidal's journey from incarcerated youth to activist highlights the human element behind the statistics. His relentless efforts to hold the system accountable have been instrumental in pushing for Rikers' closure.

• Abolition and Future Vision
  [40:55]
  "We gotta keep pulling from this system until there's no one in the system."

Vidal emphasizes the importance of addressing historical injustices and ensuring that future solutions are comprehensive and transformative.

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Conclusion and Call to Action

The episode concludes with a stark reminder of the urgency to act:

• Impending Closure and Risks
  Rikers Island is slated to close in 2027, but without immediate intervention, the impending transition risks perpetuating the same issues in new facilities.

• Potential Federal Intervention
  If the federal judge deems it necessary, a receiver could be appointed on November 17, 2022, to spearhead critical reforms.

• Community Involvement
  [35:17]
  "Get to know about the work, read, then go out to events and volunteer. Everyone's a leader in this work in their own capacity."

Listeners are encouraged to engage with the issue, support reforms, and advocate for humane treatment and swift justice for those detained at Rikers.

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Notable Quotes

• Vidal Guzman
  [06:01] "This is a very scary moment. These are human beings, you know, these are people's families."

• Trayvon Free
  [20:02] "Are we okay with keeping things status quo and allowing that number of people to die over the next five years just because we don't want to try something different?"

• Serena Townsend
  [19:43] "The department's facilities are unsafe. The use of force and violence in the jails are inextricably linked to the department's mismanagement of staffing and its significant security failures."

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Final Thoughts

"The Untold Story: Travon Explores the Humanitarian Crisis on Rikers Island" offers a comprehensive and emotionally charged examination of one of America's most troubled detention centers. Through personal narratives, expert insights, and a critical analysis of systemic flaws, the episode calls for immediate and meaningful reforms to ensure justice and humanity within the criminal justice system.

Listeners are left with a profound understanding of the challenges at Rikers Island and the imperative need for collective action to dismantle and rebuild an equitable system.

Transcript

[Megan]

Hi, I'm Megan, and I've got a new podcast I think you're going to love. It's called Confessions of a Female Founder, a show where I chat with female entrepreneurs and friends about the sleepless nights, the lessons learned, and the laser focus that got them to where they are today.

[Jay Ellis]

And through it all, I'm building a.

[Megan]

Business of my own and getting all sorts of practical advice along the way that I'm so excited to share with you. Confessions of a Female Founder is out now.

[Jay Ellis]

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

[Megan]

Hi, everyone. I'm David Duchovny. Join me on my podcast, Fail Better, where we use failure as a lens to reflect on the past and analyze the current moment. I speak with makers and performers like Rob Lowe, Rosie o' Donnell, and Kenya Barris, as well as thinkers like Kara Swisher and Nate Silver to understand how both personal setbacks and larger forces impact our world. Listen to Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts. Lemonada. Hey, what's going on, y' all? It's Jay Ellis, and we are back with season three of the Untold Story. And listen, we have some great episodes coming up for you, but I'm not gonna spoil anything just yet. I am really here to say welcome back and to let you know that I will not be hosting the show this season. I know. I know what you're saying.

[Jay Ellis]

What?

[Megan]

J. No, you're pulling your ha. You're screaming. But listen, don't worry, I'm writing a book. I gotta stay focused. But I'll be right back. Until then, you are in great hands with a really good friend of mine, Trayvon Free. And he has taken over the mic, and he is an absolutely amazing person. Now, you might know Trayvon from his standup or his writing on the Daily show, where he won an Emmy, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, or his Academy Award winning short film, Two Distant Strangers, which he should have cast me in, but he didn't, and we're still friends, and he won an Academy Award, so he probably made the right decision. He's also a real activist for justice reform, and we've been friends for years. Actually, Issa introduced us when I was on Insecure, early in Insecure. We've really known each other for a good six or seven years now, and I consider him one of my closest friends and someone who I often go to and have these conversations with. He's one of the smartest people I know, one of the most inquisitive people I know, and he is going to blow your mind and mine too. I can't wait for it. So, without further ado, take it away, Trayvon.

[Jay Ellis]

Wow. I mean, I feel like after hearing that, I should probably pay Jay Ellis to introduce me everywhere I go. It's an honor to be here. I'm looking forward to taking this opportunity to talk about important stories that impact people's lives, something that I'm very passionate about. And I'm excited that this season, season three, we're going to be digging into stories that cover things you might not even realize are happening right in your own backyard. And for every single one of those, we're going to present strategies to make real, positive change. And having heard this show and seen what it's done, I'm excited to be a part of it. And so let's just get started. This podcast contains sensitive content about incarceration and violence.

[Vidal Guzman]

Please be advised, we was all chained up, basically. Our legs was chained up, our hands is chained up. You know, we look like kids, 16, 125 pounds, probably 5, 4, 5 5, you know, with long hair. And it was totally dark. It was night. And it was someone who was an elder, and he said to us, he's like, welcome to Gladiator School. You know, you have this moment where you. You gotta really react fast and either be the sheep or the wolf. There was a fear of hearing, like, welcome to the gladiator School and Welcome to Torture Island. And slowly, I started learning what those two terms actually meant.

[Jay Ellis]

That's Vidal Guzman, and he's talking about his time at Rikers Island, a jail complex in New York City that opened in 1932. And it's a pretrial detention facility. Most people detained there haven't even been convicted of a crime. It's a notoriously dysfunctional place, and it's been that way for decades. Most likely you've seen it on the night of, or when they see us on Netflix or you've heard about it in the news. Rikers island, just a few miles from.

[Trayvon Free]

Midtown Manhattan and scene of a humanitarian crisis.

[Jay Ellis]

It's just sending people to their death sentence.

[Megan]

It's a death penalty to me. Rikers is a human slaughterhouse.

[Jay Ellis]

There was a man who was in a shower stall for days, just standing there naked. I didn't know if it was urine or if it was water. There were corrections officers who were working, not just triples.

[Megan]

Some of them have worked quadruples. This is a situation that is ripe for disaster. Today we came on an announced visit. We let the mayor's office team know. We let Doc know And they still.

[Jay Ellis]

Could not shield the atrocities that go.

[Megan]

On on this island because that's how severe it is.

[Jay Ellis]

You cannot sugarcoat this, but when Vidal was arrested as a kid and sent to the island to wait for his day in court, he didn't really know what to expect or how it would change his life.

[Vidal Guzman]

I seen violence every day. You know, I think that's something that was scary, but also like, this impacted me so much that I used to wake up from my sleep sweating, just looking around me, thinking that someone's going to attack me.

[Jay Ellis]

You know, people younger than 18 aren't held on Rikers anymore. But for the 5,000 plus people incarcerated there right now, it's actually even more dangerous and more deadly than when Vdal was there in 2008.

[Vidal Guzman]

To hear close to 26 to 27 people have died in the past 19 months because of all different types of issues. It's scary. It is scary. This is a very scary moment. These are human beings, you know, these are people's families. I think with what's happening on Rikers island, it needs to be closed yesterday because some people don't come home.

[Jay Ellis]

Annabel Carrasquilio.

[Trayvon Free]

Say his name.

[Jay Ellis]

After years in a state of crisis, the leadership at Rikers is still failing to keep incarcerated people safe. Just between the start of 2022 and the date of this recording on September 22nd, Tars Youngblood, George Pagan, Herman Diaz, DeShawn Carter, Mary Yehuda, Emmanuel Sullivan, Antonio Bradley, Annabel Carrasquillo, Elijah Muhammad, Michael Lopez, Ricardo Crusiani, Michael Nieves, Kevin Bryan, Gregory Acevedo and Robert Pondexter have died after being held at Rikers. Some of these people died from untreated medical conditions, some from suicide. One person choked to death while an officer stood by. Most, if not all of their deaths were preventable if only these people were given adequate medical care and supervision. This is a fucking emergency. I'm Trayvon Free. And this is the Untold Story, Season three. The injustice happening in your own backyard. Rikers is scheduled to close in 2027, but that's five years away. And at the rate we're going, 80 more people might die on the island before the jail is shut down. And to be clear, this culture of violence and dehumanization is not just a problem at Rikers. There's systemic issues with our carceral system all across the country. But we're focusing on Rikers in this episode because not only is it exceptionally bad, but there's also something that could actually make things better for the people incarcerated there. And that something is called a federal receivership. Could it work? Will it happen? That's what we're getting into today. So I grew up in Compton in the 80s and 90s when it was probably one of the most dangerous cities in America. And I saw how the cycle of policing and incarceration put a heavy strain on families in my neighborhood, even my own. It was a painful thing to see up close. But I was lucky to leave Compton and go to Long Beach State on a basketball scholarship, which is where I started stand up comedy. Then in 2012, I moved to New York to write for the Daily show with Jon Stewart, which was my absolute dream job. So I lived and worked in New York for years, but I wasn't really aware of the problems on Rikers island until I heard about Kalief Browder. Kalief was arrested in 2010 at the age of 16 for allegedly stealing a backpack. He was taken to Rikers and forced to wait there for three years without ever being convicted of a crime. At Rikers, Kalief was repeatedly beaten by correction officers and forced to spend almost two years in solitary confinement. Two years. He maintained his innocence, and the charges against him were eventually dropped. After his release, he became an influential voice in helping to reform the New York York City jail system. In solitary confinement, they control your food and how much food you get. So if you say anything that could tick them off in any type of way, some of them, which is a lot of them, what they do is they starve you, they won't feed you, and it's already hard in there because if you get the three trays that you get every day, you're still hungry.

[Megan]

Because I guess that's part of the punishment.

[Jay Ellis]

But then, tragically, a few years after his release at the age of 22, Kalief Browder died by suicide. I remember hearing Kalief's story and thinking how horrific it was. But what continues to shock me is that the problems at Rikers, the torture and dehumanization that Kalief endured, continues to this day. The Department of Correction has said they no longer use solitary confinement at Rikers, but the reality is that solitary confinement still happens just under different names. And issues with staffing and violence at the jail are not improving. And somehow we spend an outrageous amount of money to keep people in this terrifyingly inhumane place. Here's Brad Lander, the New York City Comptroller.

[Megan]

Spending per person has continued to grow and now totals more than half a million dollars per person in custody per year.

[Jay Ellis]

Just think about that it cost over $500,000 for each person on Rikers. And every single year, that's about 20 times more than New York City spends per student in the education system. And yet the facilities on Rikers are crumbling. Numerous cell doors don't even lock. Corrections officers frequently use force against people in their care. And critical posts inside the jail are going unstaffed because of chronic absenteeism. All of this creates an environment where people who enter custody are truly in danger. As it stands today, Rikers is a group of eight jails. If you happen to be arrested in New York City and you can't get out on bail, it's likely you'll end up at Rikers. The facilities are all run by the New York City Department of Correction and all grouped together on what used to be the garbage dump for New York City. It's right in the middle of the east river, but if you've never had to visit, you might not even realize it's there. But if you happen to commute between Queens and the Bronx, or if you've ever flown out of LaGuardia Airport, it's likely you've seen Rikers. And the folks detained there have definitely heard your plane. And beyond being subject to intense airplane noise. What's happening inside those walls right now, it's outright unconstitutional.

[Megan]

People assume Rikers is this terrible place they've heard about for, like, terrible people convicted of heinous crimes. But the crazy thing is Rikers is a pretrial Det. Center.

[Jay Ellis]

Aliyah Mia Lurin is a public defender for the Legal Aid Society in New York City. She works with people in Rikers all the time.

[Megan]

Rikers is where anybody in New York City who cannot afford bail go to await their trial. So it's simply just that they don't have the money to purchase their freedom, essentially to wait and fight their case.

[Jay Ellis]

From the outside, Rikers is not a prison, which is where most people convicted of crimes go. It's a jail. About 70% of people on the island are just there waiting for their day in court. And sometimes the courts really take their time. Almost a third of the people on Rikers, folks who were presumed innocent under the law have been held there for over a year. And even the most dedicated lawyers and advocates can only do so much to make sure that nothing terrible happens while people are stuck waiting.

[Megan]

So Rikers is unfortunately a part of the day to day reality of my life and the people that I represent. And for me, I think people tend to think when you're a lawyer that you think you're doing God's work or that you're going to change the system from the inside. And that's just not true. That's just not how I feel about it. I think as a public defender, I'm a harm reductionist. At most, when I meet my clients at arraignments, I am meeting them at the intersection of a lot of ways that they've been failed by our system. And the very most I can do, and I hope to do, is reduce some of that pain and psychological trauma that's gonna come from this process of feeling dehumanized, of feeling criminalized.

[Jay Ellis]

Olayamy represents people who don't have money for a lawyer. So when a judge sets bail on one of her clients, it is very possible that they won't be able to pay it and will end up at Rikers. At the start of the pandemic, the city tries to reform the bail system so that fewer people charged with misdemeanors and nonviolent crimes would be held at Rikers just because they couldn't afford bail. This kind of reform is one way the city could decrease the number of people locked up and create a more efficient and humane justice system. But bail reform efforts often get falsely connected to fears about increased crime, and we end up with a lot of poor people sitting in jail while they wait for their trial. And some people held on Rikers have recently missed their court dates because no staff were available to take them to court. Isn't it ironic that the purpose of bail is to make sure people get to court, but Rikers can't seem to get them there? It's another shocking symptom of a jail that just can't seem to get its management and staffing issues under control.

[Megan]

I have never been in court and not felt like I was in the upside down. I am in court constantly looking for the imaginary narrator, like, do you see this? Is anybody getting this? Do y' all feel me? I'm the only person making sense in here. And I know that if other people were around, if the majority of people could see what I'm seeing, they would be outraged.

[Jay Ellis]

So how do we get people out of this message? A lot of people, activists, academics, even former commissioners of the New York City department of Correction are all saying that there's one intervention that could address the immediate crisis.

[Megan]

A receivership basically, is a court device.

[Jay Ellis]

That strips the government of control of a public institution and substitutes political leaders like a mayor, like a. A commissioner of corrections with a neutral.

[Megan]

Court appointed expert as management.

[Jay Ellis]

Hernandez Stroud. Is an expert on receivership at the Brennan center for justice in New York City. Basically, a receiver is a person or a group of people that the court sends in to take over when the local government is not complying with the law. If you imagine our three branches of government, this is the judicial branch stepping in and saying that the executive branch, in this case, the government of New York City, isn't doing what's necessary to protect people's constitutional rights. And it's not only used for jails and prisons. Receivership is a tool that the courts use to get certain schools to desegregate after Brown versus Board of Education. And it's a strategy that can come up anytime a public institution is failing.

[Megan]

Well, the Pioneer Institute is urging the state to put Boston Public Schools into receivership. Now, receivership is used when a school district is considered both chronically low performing and not showing signs of substantial improvement over time.

[Jay Ellis]

And receivership pops up in other kinds of emergencies, too. The situation with Lehman Brothers and other.

[Megan]

Financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that have generated enormous.

[Jay Ellis]

Uncertainty about the future of our financial markets.

[Vidal Guzman]

The companies made huge profits, but when.

[Megan]

Subprime mortgages went bustling, they took huge losses. All financial companies put into receivership under this title shall be liquidated.

[Jay Ellis]

Yep, a type of receivership was used to manage some institutions after the 2008 financial crisis. And an important note about a possible Rikers receivership. Just because the person is called a federal receiver does not mean they would have anything to do with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. That's a whole different system, totally unrelated to whoever might be put in charge of Rikers. And receivership is weird. The courts generally do not want to be in charge of running a public institution. It's kind of like that last desperate strategy that the heroes of an action movie try when it looks like everything is lost. I mean, it's not like anyone from Jaws woke up thinking, let's get rid of this shark by blowing it up with a scuba tank. But when the boat is sinking and lives are at stake, you just have to take care of the problem. Here's Hernandez again. It's a stopgap designed to temporarily stabilize egregious legal violations.

[Megan]

The Supreme Court has said that a.

[Jay Ellis]

Receivership is not an end in itself.

[Megan]

Receivership, short of outright closure, is the most intrusive tool in a court's arsenal.

[Jay Ellis]

Olayemi, the public defender who you heard from earlier, knows from working with her clients how badly immediate change is needed, especially since the pandemic swept in and made conditions at Rikers even worse.

[Megan]

Imagine you've been locked up for two years. You haven't been convicted. You've been waiting on your trial for two years. You are locked up behind bars, and all of a sudden, Covid is running rampant through the jail. People are telling you social distance, and you can't social distance. People are piled on top of you. People are getting sick. People are killing themselves. There's just no way to do justice to terror. And I can't. I can't even begin to suggest that I even can understand. I can even put myself into what that must have felt like.

[Jay Ellis]

It's just one crisis on top of another.

[Megan]

But if the federal government could come in, they could at least in the interim, you know, address these issues and do something to deal with the mismanagement that could maybe slow and stop the deaths.

[Jay Ellis]

Now.

[Megan]

I want to be very clear. It's not just another solution to say, well, we've tried everything. Let's try this. I fully believe that a receivership would actually fix the problems that we're seeing on Rikers Island.

[Jay Ellis]

This is Serena Townsend. She was the deputy commissioner of the Intelligence, investigation and Trials division at Rikers for six years. That means she oversaw the team that investigated misconduct on the island. Serena was involved in investigating everything from excessive use of force to officers failing to show up for work.

[Megan]

One of the reasons why change is not happening is because people don't know how bad it is. And I can tell you, as the person who knew everything on Rikers island, it's really bad.

[Jay Ellis]

And Serena told us it's simply not safe and not legal to let these problems go unaddressed any longer?

[Megan]

Are we okay with keeping things status quo and allowing that number of people to die over the next five years just because we don't want to try something different? Rikers island does not need little changes. Rikers island needs to be overhauled. And the only way to do it in one fell swoop is to have a federal receiver come in and overtake the department and get rid of all of the barriers to reform. And it's been very, very, very clear that even with the most committed commissioners, you cannot change Rikers island, especially not immediately, without having federal intervention.

[Jay Ellis]

That's after the break.

[Megan]

Hey, I'm Reshma Sajani, founder of Girls who Code and Moms First. I consider myself a pretty successful adult woman. So why is it that in midlife, as I'm about to turn 50, I feel so stuck? Join me as I try to find the answer On My so Called Midlife from Lemonada Media, I talk to experts and extraordinary guests about divorce, exercise, menopause, sex, drugs and more to understand what we're going through and how to make the most of it. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jay Ellis]

I'm Hasan Minhaj and I have been lying to you. I only pretended to be a comedian.

[Megan]

So I could trick important people into coming on my podcast.

[Jay Ellis]

And Hassan Minhaj doesn't know to ask them the tough questions that real journalists.

[Megan]

Are way too afraid to ask. People like Senator Elizabeth Warren. Is America too dumb for democracy? Outrageous.

[Jay Ellis]

Parenting expert Dr. Becky how do you.

[Megan]

Skip consequences without raising a psychopath? That's a good question. Listen to Hasan Minhaj doesn't know from Lemonada Media Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Trayvon Free]

This was a really bad, poorly run place that for decades was ignored by most leaders and citizens of the City of New York. And there's no way to explain where we are today without realizing that we've been digging this hole for four decades.

[Jay Ellis]

Vincent Schiraldi is a senior fellow at the Columbia Justice Lab and a senior research scientist at at the Columbia School of Social Work. He's the founder of the Justice Policy Institute, and he's worked for many years on efforts to reform the criminal justice system. He was also commissioner of the New York City Department of corrections for seven months in 2021. That meant he was in charge of running the place, and he, like many people before him, wanted to stop digging this hole and actually improve the conditions at Rikers. But attempts to reform keep falling short. Here's Serena with a specific example.

[Megan]

There was a lawsuit back in 2014 by an individual named Mark Nunez, and it was a lawsuit involving excessive use of force. He had been severely beaten up by correction officers, and it obviously was not the first lawsuit lodged against the Department of Correction. But what ended up happening is it turned into a class action lawsuit where many parties were involved, including Legal Aid and the Department of Justice. And in order to resolve that lawsuit, the department entered into a settlement agreement.

[Jay Ellis]

This settlement agreement in the Nunez case required a lot of things from the New York City Department of Correction. It mandated that Rikers install more cameras, improve training for corrections officers, change the way use of force was defined, and a bunch of other changes that, if successfully implemented, would keep people on Rikers safe and make sure their constitutional rights were protected. And as a part of the agreement, the court appointed a federal monitor. The monitor and their team don't have the power to make changes at Rikers like a receiver would. Their focus on observing what's happening at Rikers and reporting what they see, which is how we know that what's happening at Rikers today is still really bad.

[Megan]

There is a clear frustration that you can feel when reading those monitors reports. They still are seeing hyper confrontational behavior by correction officers. Excessive use of force, violence, death. They have said in no uncertain terms that things are not getting better, things have not improved, and that they are very concerned if things continue the way that they do, that the department will never be able to meet the standards that they should be meeting.

[Jay Ellis]

Serena's right. Let me just read you a couple of bits from a report the monitor filed earlier this year. Quote, the department's facilities are unsafe. The use of force and violence in the jails are inextricably linked to the department's mismanagement of staffing and its significant security failures. And quote, the monitoring team must emphasize that these high rates are not typical, they are not expected, they are not normal. So the Department of Correction has been sued. They've developed on multiple occasions detailed plans for how to fix things. They're being monitored by the courts. And these reports are coming back saying very clearly that Rikers is still a disaster. The reforms from the Nunez case and appointing a federal monitor looks like it's just not enough. Rikers has gotten worse and it's causing irreparable harm to people. Here's Vinnie again.

[Trayvon Free]

Part of digging this hole was a lot of giveaways to the unions on various different employment issues, some of which they totally deserve. They totally deserve good money, for example. They totally deserve actually a generous sick leave policy because it's a really, really difficult job. But it's gone way beyond that, in large part because the union's very focused on getting more and more and more. And nobody's focused on the other side of that.

[Jay Ellis]

The staff on Rikers island are mostly unionized corrections officers, Captains. They all have union representation. And you might say that the unions have done a good job fighting for their members. Corrections officers have lots of normal union benefits like retirement plans and medical coverage. But over decades, with a small concession here and a handshake deal over there, we've arrived at a system that has some troubling flaws and is excessively hard to reform.

[Trayvon Free]

One that sounds obscure, but is super meaningful is the ability to hire management staff from outside the city of New York. So the way it is now because of several state and local laws, is that you can only hire supervisory staff in New York City's Department of Correction if they came up through the city's system, they have to have started as a correctional officer. So that means there are a lot of 15, 10, 20 year people who have only ever worked in a destructive and toxic jail system. And that is the only pool from which I could pick my supervisors. So when I was commissioner, I was hoping that truly mediocre supervisors wouldn't quit because the next person in line was terrible. And that was the only pool I had to fish in.

[Jay Ellis]

And the issue that has gotten the most attention lately is the unlimited sick leave policy. Now, lots of people obviously did get really sick during the pandemic, and lots of folks had family responsibilities or had mental health troubles. It's been rough. So a spike in sick leave among correction officers makes sense. But as it stands right now, if an officer doesn't come to work and doesn't call, even if it puts someone else in a terrible situation where they have to work a triple shift, and even if they do this repeatedly, it can take years, years of disciplinary hearings before that AWOL officer can be fired.

[Trayvon Free]

I remember the AWOL conversation with a high ranking labor relations official for the city, and I was complaining about it, and she said, well, what do you want to do, Vinny? I said, you know, I bought coffee this morning, and I'm pretty sure the guy that sold me that coffee, if he didn't come to work and didn't call in today, wouldn't be selling me coffee tomorrow. So that's what I want. I want to be able to fire well paid corrections officials if they don't come to work and don't call in the first time they do it. And she laughed at me, literally laughed at me. And then I said, all right, well, how about the second time? So her lawyers and my lawyers went into a room to try to figure out how we could streamline this. And I kid you not, the recommendation they came back with was 5 instead of 6 AWOLs. So I think that there's this sort of bravado about we can fix it, but when the rubber really hits the road, the unions aren't stupid. They didn't negotiate stuff that could just be blown away through conventional measures. They're going to sue and they're going to win, unless there's an extraordinary bunch of powers that gets brought to bear by the courts. And that's how you can have an environment in which the most richly staffed jail system in the country doesn't have enough people to staff its living units.

[Jay Ellis]

And when there aren't enough staff, other problems, big and small, accumulate until the Whole system is in chaos.

[Trayvon Free]

Not enough people to take you to visit your family when they come on Saturday. So your wife and child schlep all the way to Rikers island, spend a whole day and don't actually get to visit you. Not enough staff to bring the commissary, so you pay for ramen noodles on Wednesday and Sunday. You still don't have them. Not enough staff to distribute toenail clippers, so your toenails are cutting through your socks. These are things people actually raised with me, so I'm not, like, making them up, right? Not enough staff to take you to a medical appointment so when you're sick, you don't get treatment. One of the people who died this year missed nine medical appointments, despite the fact that he was vomiting on himself, despite. And he died. Another man died choking on an orange. There was no staff on that unit to give him the Heimlich maneuver or to let him out and take him to medical. The other incarcerated people finally demanded to be let out so they could take him, and unfortunately, it was too late and he died.

[Jay Ellis]

And even with the federal monitor reporting on the problems at Rikers, sometimes it can be hard to get accurate information about just how bad things are.

[Trayvon Free]

11,000 medical appointments were missed in April. What did the department do? Change the way we count missed medical appointments.

[Jay Ellis]

And that kind of data manipulation only makes progress more difficult.

[Trayvon Free]

I'm not proud to say this because part of this was me. Last year, the numbers were crazy. They were crazy. Last year, 2021, they saw three times as many slashings and stabbings as 2020. And this year it's up 40% versus last year so far. So I think we have to face that head on. And if that means that the federal court needs to appoint a receiver who can fix things faster, not because he's better or. Or smarter or taller or shorter than the current commissioner or the last commissioner, but because he has powers to do things, or she has powers to do things that the current commissioner doesn't have and can only dream of, then that's what we need to do. But we'll never know that if they keep fudging the numbers.

[Jay Ellis]

Our producers reached out to Commissioner Luis Molina and the New York City Department of Correction for this episode and haven't received a response. But Molina, along with Mayor Eric Adams and the head of the Corrections officers union, have all said publicly that they believe they can fix Rikers themselves. Meanwhile, the federal judge is waiting until November to assess their progress before maybe moving on to a pointer receiver. So could a Receiver really do better. Receivership is rare, but we can look to some examples of where it's been used before. One good comparison case is Chicago. Back in 2007, the Cook county juvenile detention system was a mess and the federal court took it over. The person the court sent to reform it had the power to make changes that the union would have otherwise blocked. And so he was able to improve some things that a normal commissioner just couldn't have managed.

[Trayvon Free]

He realized that staff had a terrible level of training, so he was able to rewrite the position descriptions to make them more like what you want staff to do and to require higher education. And about half of their staff left because of that. And there was some pretty bad staff doing some pretty violent stuff to the kids. So that was a major, major change. They were able to institute cognitive behavioral therapy for all of the kids, and that yielded a 22% reduction in recidivism. And they measured recidivism by whether kids actually came back into facility. So not only did that reduce re arrests post release, but it helped reduce the population.

[Jay Ellis]

Now, things in Chicago aren't perfect. There has been some backsliding, but overall the improvements have stuck, which is why Vincent wants to see a similar attempt in New York City. But even a receivership isn't an instant fix.

[Trayvon Free]

I think that one should expect a receivership in New York City to take about as long as it took, at least in Cook county, which took seven years.

[Jay Ellis]

Seven years. That's a long time. But that's the same amount of time we've already waited to see results from the last reform attempt with the consent decree and the federal monitor. And even if it would take seven years to bring Rikers into compliance on every issue, a receiver could make life saving improvements all along the way. Until a better system is in place, Rikers is scheduled to close and be replaced by several new, smaller and theoretically more humane jails and in 2027. Which only makes it more important that the culture of violence and dysfunction is addressed now, or else we're likely to just see the same dangerous and dehumanizing treatment inside some shiny new buildings all around the city. And it's questionable, especially without receivership, if Rikers will even close on schedule. Part of the plan to transition to the new borough based jails requires the city to get the number of people in jail down to 3,300 or less through measures like bail reform and getting people to court faster. And we've gotten close to that number before. But things change. So what can activists or people like me and you do to end the culture of violence on Rikers. And how do we make the change stick?

[Vidal Guzman]

But I say with people, just get to know about the work, read, then go out to events and volunteer.

[Jay Ellis]

Right.

[Vidal Guzman]

Everyone's a leader in this work in their own capacity.

[Jay Ellis]

That's after the break.

[Megan]

Hi, I'm Erica Mahoney. You don't know me, but you know a version of my story, because by now we've all felt the impact of senseless gun violence. I think a stray bullet flew past.

[Jay Ellis]

Me because I hear the.

[Megan]

It was that horrible feeling of dread, something's wrong. Four years ago, my dad was killed in a mass shooting. My podcast, Senseless is about moving forward after the unthinkable Senseless. From Lemonada Media, premiering June 17th. I'm Meredith Goldstein, host of the Boston Globe's Love Letters podcast, which features real people from all over the world telling stories about their relationship lives. This season, we're talking about how to change for the better.

[Jay Ellis]

I just remember thinking, like, wow, this is what a healthy relationship looks and feels like.

[Megan]

The reason why I'm getting emotional is I didn't want to leave you. I never thought I would be this way again. Join us at Love Letters, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jay Ellis]

We're back with activist Vidal Guzman, who you heard from at the beginning of the episode.

[Vidal Guzman]

Even you being a wolf in Rikers, you can't be a lonely wolf all the time.

[Jay Ellis]

You know, this fight to close Rikers and make conditions better, we owe a lot of the progress to Vidal and his fellow organizers. Today, he's writing a book, and his experience reflects the stories of so many others.

[Vidal Guzman]

Before even being through the system, I experienced many levels of, like, poverty.

[Jay Ellis]

Vidal grew up in Harlem, and he was homeless at just 5 years old.

[Vidal Guzman]

Started basically being a corner kid and selling drugs at 8 or 9 years old, and I became gang related at 13, 14 years old.

[Jay Ellis]

And at age 16, that's when he was arrested and sent to Rikers. Vidal says he was hit and knocked down by guards at Rikers. And those Monitor reports we were just telling you about from as recently as March of 2022, they're full of accounts of staff hitting and otherwise severely mistreating incarcerated people.

[Vidal Guzman]

They didn't care about how good of a human being you are. A lot of times, you know, being, you know, being the wolf meant that, you know, like, I had to put myself into violent situations. Not because I wanted to, was because I was trying to survive. And for me was like, really fighting. You know, I'm saying fighting every day or fighting every other day, you know?

[Jay Ellis]

Videos and reports from people in Rikers have even exposed stories of officers encouraging and sometimes organizing fights among the people they're supposed to protect.

[Vidal Guzman]

I even went down when I was 16, went down to go see my lawyer with a black eye, you know, and I think for me, like, there was this environment on Rikers that I really learned quick.

[Jay Ellis]

But even while rampant violence at Rikers traumatized Vidal, he did encounter other incarcerated people who encouraged him to pursue his education and turn his life around.

[Vidal Guzman]

I came home when I was 24 and really got more involved in just the aspect of, you know, caring about the conditions of my neighborhood.

[Jay Ellis]

Vidal got his GED and got a job on an award winning food truck. Shortly after he got home, he worked for a while making great food alongside other formerly incarcerated people. And from there, he eventually became an activist for the Closed rikers campaign. In 2015, Vidal was the guy in charge of following Mayor Bill de Blasio around, working to get some FaceTime to convince the mayor of New York City that conditions at Rikers are unacceptable.

[Vidal Guzman]

You know, like, we was chasing the mayor everywhere. You know, he was like, I was that guy who used to wait around Gracie Mansion at 5 o' clock with a suit on thinking that. Someone thinking, I'm a security from one of these buildings, but I'm just watching out to see where he's going. And I'm like, you know, telling the organizers, like, hey, you know, like, he's going here, he's going here, you know, and we told him, like, yo, you can't reform Rikers.

[Jay Ellis]

That was around the time that Kalief Browder died. People in New York City were angry, especially those who had dealt with Rikers firsthand. People like Vidal and other formerly incarcerated folks who were held at the detention center. So that's why it was such a big deal when de Blasio finally went on the news to make a statement on the matter, to say, yeah, Rikers should close.

[Vidal Guzman]

Literally, I had tears coming out of my eyes in Manhattan, where I was like, yo. Because this was my way to everything that I went through. I was able to hold the system accountable.

[Jay Ellis]

That was several years ago. We can't become complacent. Even if Rikers does close in 2027 and the courts appoint a receiver in the meantime, Vidal still thinks we need more progressive measures.

[Vidal Guzman]

For me, as someone who believe in abolition, we gotta keep pulling from this system until there's no one in the system. You know, Rikers island is named from someone named Richard Rikers, who was a part of the kidnapped club where he used to kidnap free black people and sell them back into slavery. So, like, there, there is a lot of history about Rikers island that we have to talk about.

[Jay Ellis]

Yeah. A guy named Abraham Ricken bought the island back in the 17th century, and then his great grandson Richard Riker decided to use their family power and wealth to sell free black people into slavery. How fucked up is that? Vidal doesn't want us to forget our history, and that includes the lives that have already been lost at Rikers Island.

[Vidal Guzman]

You know, like when I look at how directly impacted are people who are incarcerated are treated, you know, I'm saying there is this, this way of like treating people are humans, right? Like, you know, because they're black and brown and you know what I'm saying? And poor. You know, there's not a, there's, there's not a lawn being rung, you know, and I think that is just unjust. Like there has to be a memorial, you know, where people who died in Rikers island are remembered.

[Jay Ellis]

With all the problems in our carceral system, it makes you think, what if we were able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year helping people who are struggling instead of locking them up, getting folks better food, housing, medical care, and education. Lots of people in jail have mental health conditions. What if we could use that money to make mental health care and supportive services more accessible? Being sick or poor or black or brown is no reason to be locked up and is certainly no reason to die in jail awaiting your day in court. We can and should do better. On November 17, 2022, the federal judge on the Rikers case is scheduled to review the jail's progress. If the report from the Monitor and the other evidence she reviews convinces her that a receiver is necessary, she could decide to appoint a receiver that day and start the process of selecting the right person or people for the job. If you're interested in following what's happening or if you want to write to the New York City Council members, you can do that and find lots of other [e-mail] next time on the Untold Story. Can you tell the difference between a gunshot and a firework? ShotSpotter says it can. It's a private company that has microphones in cities all across America listening for gunfire. They say they're stopping gun violence, but not everyone's convinced it's just another way.

[Megan]

To expand and entrench these police based, carceral so called solutions to the problems that we're seeing in our community. And there is a better way.

[Jay Ellis]

This is in your podcast feed right now. Go listen. I'll see you there.

[Megan]

Foreign.

[Jay Ellis]

The Untold Story is a Lemonada Media original presented by Campaign Zero. This episode is produced by Nicole Gosselin with production help from Hannah Boomershine and Priscilla Allerby. Our supervising producer is Kristen Lepore. Our production intern is Jayla Everett. Music, sound design and mixing by Hannis Brown. Engineering from Andrea, Kristen's daughter. Our executive producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer, Stephanie widdles, Wax, Deray McKesson and Jay Ellis. Special thanks to Stanley Richards at the Fortune Society and everyone else who helped on this episode. For bonus content from the Untold Story, subscribe to Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts. I'm Trayvon Free. You can find me at Trayvon on Instagram and Twitter. And thank you for listening. Peace.

[Megan]

Parents.

[Jay Ellis]

We know the child care crisis is not just another headline.

[Megan]

It's a daily struggle playing out in millions of homes across this country. I'm Gloria Rivera, and this is no One Is Coming to Save Us this season.

[Jay Ellis]

We're demanding a child care system that.

[Megan]

Actually works for kids, parents and educators.

[Jay Ellis]

We mean free birth to five.

[Megan]

Full day nearby, easy to apply.

[Jay Ellis]

No one is coming to Save Us Season 5 from Lemonada Media.

[Megan]

Out now. Tired of the same old political shouty matches and talking points? Looking for thoughtful conversations that go beyond the headlines and and help you understand issues that matter. I'm Sarah. And I'm Beth. Together we host Pantsuit Politics, a podcast where we bring grace, nuance and perspective to the news. Because democracy deserves more than hot takes. Join us as we approach politics and current events with curiosity, empathy and a commitment to understanding the bigger picture. If you want to stay informed without the anxiety, we're the show for you. New episodes drop on Tuesdays and Fridays. Subscribe to Pantsuit Politics wherever you get your podcasts.