The testimony of social worker Justyna Rzewinski about the extended lock-ins – or “deadlocking” – of severely mentally ill people in a Rikers Island jail Tuesday drew the full attention of a city jail oversight board and pledges from a top Correction Department official to investigate.
Rzewinski appeared before the Board of Correction after she detailed exclusively to the Daily News how men were locked in their cells in mental health units for weeks and even months at the George R. Vierno Center, causing extreme behavior like relentless screaming, banging on their doors day and night and smearing their own feces.
“This practice is widely known and widely practiced,” Rzewinski told the board. “It was well established and throughout my time, I saw more and more individuals subjected to it.”
The members of the board, who have often been at odds on other matters, seemed to agree her account called for further examination.
“These allegations are damning, especially to hear they are being used punitively. I propose we really dig further into this,” said Vice Chairwoman Helen Skipper, a City Council appointee.
Board Chairman Dwayne Sampson, an Adams administration appointee, said, “This concern of deadlocking has been a concern of mine since I’ve been on this board. The constant excuses of staffing and no medical staff, it’s endless.”
DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie did not attend the hearing; a DOC spokeswoman declining to say why she did not appear.
DOC general counsel James Conway disputed the practice was occurring at the “breadth and scope” characterized by Rzewinski.
“We are looking into the allegation wholesale so I don’t have a lot of specifics. Until we further the investigation, we can’t comment further,” Conway said.
Later, pressed by board member Robert Cohen, Conway said, “There are procedures. It should not be categorized as just kind of a willy-nilly we’re doing it. Anything beyond that is not something this commissioner will tolerate.”
But Dr. Bupin Subedi, the chief medical officer with Correctional Health Services, the city agency that oversees medical care in the jail, told the board he did not dispute any part of Rzewinski’s account.
Joseph Otonichar, the CHS chief of mental health, also seemed to contradict Conway on the extent of the practice.
“I’ve heard this term since I’ve started,” Otonichar said. “We have really tried to work with our DOC colleagues in ensuring patients are escalated [brought to a hospital] when this does come up.”
Cohen noted during the hearing that for three years, Mayor Adams and Mayor de Blasio before him suspended city rules that limit the duration of lock-ins to two hours via executive orders.
“I don’t see any basis for it and people have been driven crazy by being locked in for long periods of time and hurt themselves,” Cohen said.
Natalie Fiorenzo, a senior corrections specialist with New York County Defender Services, described her shock after talking at length with Rzewinski. “This was where we thought, where I thought, our clients would remain relatively stable and cared for. … How wrong we were,” she said.
Justyna Rzewinski, a former Social Worker who worked at City Jails, speaks to the Daily News about conditions and treatment of inmates with mental health problems that she observed during her time there in Queens on Saturday Oct. 5, 2024. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
Mayor Adams, who in July refused to implement parts of Local Law 42 which bans solitary confinement, told reporters at City Hall Tuesday he fully supports Maginley-Liddie. “She’s not going to tolerate the mistreatment of those … with severe mental health issues,” he said.
More broadly, the mayor said he was concerned the plan to close Rikers might be merely displacing a problem without fixing it.
“You can’t have 51% of the inmates at Rikers Island having mental health issues. That’s just wrong,” he said. “That is a failure of our city to place people with mental health issues in jail.”
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a sponsored of Local Law 42, called the report in The News outlining the practice “disturbing and alarming.”
“Not only is the city failing to provide mental health support on Rikers, these and other alleged DOC practices are actively harming the mental health of vulnerable incarcerated New Yorkers,” he said in a statement. “This violates not only the Board of Correction minimum standards, but the minimum morals to which we should hold our city.”
Antoinette Anderson, a vice president with the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, insisted that officers don’t have the authority to lock in detainees without approval of CHS.
At the same time she expressed frustrations that seem to be held by a lot of officers. “When we have an inmate who is assaulting staff what should we do with extreme situations,” she said.
“Why can’t we get the hospitals for the mentally ill to properly help them because Rikers is not equipped for them.”