STATEMENT FROM CAMPAIGN TO CLOSE RIKERS ON THE SELECTION OF A REMEDIATION MANAGER FOR RIKERS ISLAND

Today, Federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain named a remediation manager who will oversee the city’s jail system including Rikers Island, as part of the Nunez consent decree. This decision comes after 15 people died in DOC custody last year, and amid continued dysfunction at Rikers despite almost ten years of reports from the federally appointed monitor.

In response, the Campaign to Close Rikers issued the following statement:

“The federal monitor has repeatedly said that the imminent risk of harm to everyone detained at Rikers makes it necessary and urgent to use every possible tool to reduce the jail population. As Nicholas Deml steps into his role as remediation manager, he should be making plans to ensure the Department of Correction is helping to reduce case delays instead of adding to them, by doing things as basic as getting people to their court dates on time, and facilitating assessments that can connect people in their custody with diversion opportunities. Mr. Deml must also recognize that Rikers cannot be fixed, and that supporting its closure on the fastest possible timeline will be key to his task of ending the violence that has always defined Rikers Island.”

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