Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming today. My name is Vinnie Schiraldi, senior research scientist for the Columbia School of Social Work and senior fellow at the Columbia Justice Lab. I'd like to welcome you to today's forum on behalf of the Lab, the School of Social Work and cosponsors, the Columbia Law School, CUNY's Institute for State and Local Governance, and Vital City. 

Before I go any further, I'd like to observe a moment of silence on behalf of correctional officer Edward Roman, who committed suicide last weekend, and five incarcerated people who have died in custody this year-- Tarz Youngblood, George Pagan, Herman Diaz, Dashawn Carter, and most recently, Mary Yehudah, who died just yesterday. 

Thank you. I'm going to do three things briefly right now. I want to go over logistics. I want to provide some background on the state of Rikers Island for context on why we're having today's forum. And then I'm going to briefly introduce opening speaker Sara Norman. 

[INAUDIBLE] worry about education. Whatever the case may be-- 

Put yourself on mute, someone. Thanks. This forum is being both broadcast live via Zoom and taped. Only speakers will be on air to be taped. And they've all signed release forms. We anticipate the forum running approximately two hours. To save time, all introductions will be brief. We also will not directly take questions during the event. But if you have a question, please use the question function on Zoom. 

We're going to take those answers to those questions and put them up online in about a week on the websites of Vital City and the Columbia Justice Lab. Vital City-- I'll read it out, but I'll put up a slide-- is vitalcitynyc.org. And the Columbia Justice Lab is justice.columbia.edu. 

I'll put the answers to those questions, along with a video of today's event, a short explainer on receiverships that Miss Norman wrote, a brief on Cook County's transitional administrator, and bios of all the speakers. We'll also email the links to our websites to everyone who is registered or been invited to this event when the video and questions synopsis are available. All right, that's it for logistics. 

During the final seven months of Mayor de Blasio's administration in 2021, I was Commissioner of New York City's Department of Corrections. There has been, appropriately, an enormous amount of media coverage of the violence and chaos at Rikers Island before, during, and since that time. What many of you heard about the awful conditions there, from union members, staff, incarcerated people, advocates, the board of corrections, the monitor, and the media, is by and large true and accurate. 

The city has, under a federal consent decree in Nunez versus The City of New York, filed to address the unconstitutional culture of violence in city jails. But even with a strong and experienced monitoring team led by Steve Martin since 2015, things have steadily and then rapidly, after the advent of the pandemic, deteriorated. 

As recently as March, the monitor wrote that the city's jails are, quote, "trapped in a state of persistent functionality," end quote, with, quote, "imminent risk to harm to incarcerated individuals and staff," or maybe not so imminent, maybe already realized. For example, in 2020, there were 121 stabbings and slashings, something the monitor described then as a high number compared to national rates of violence. 

Then, last year, there were 420 slashings and stabbings, more than three times as many as the previous year. So far, through April of this year, there have been 190 more slashes and stabbings, which, if it annualizes at this rate, means there would be 500 slashings and stabbings this year, nearly five times the extraordinary 2020 number and four times the 2020 rate. 

I'll say a few words about why this chaos and violence is growing so much. Whether deeper federal intervention like a receivership could help resolve this crisis will occupy the rest of the forum. When I got to Rikers, I was astonished by how many staff we had, around 8,000 uniformed staff, compared to around 5,500 incarcerated people, a ratio many times higher than under other correctional systems. 

And yet every weekend and many weekdays, we had dozens of staff working triple shifts and dozens of unstaffed posts, meaning there were either exhausted floor officers or no floor officers on dozens and dozens of living units. When I toured those unstaffed units, incarcerated people were often armed with homemade shanks fashioned from pieces of metal and Plexiglas, too readily available in the city's decrepit jails. 

When I spoke to incarcerated people about this, they told me they were armed to protect themselves, because there was no officer to do so. That meant that every unintentional bump on the way to the bathroom turned into a potential knife fight. Over the past year and a half, 21 people have died in Rikers, many as a direct or indirect result of not having a floor officer or having an exhausted floor officer who is not up to the difficult job she has to do. 

Two of the four incarcerated people-- of the five incarcerated people who died this year, Herman Diaz and George Pagan, died in units with no floor officer. Mr. Diaz died from choking on an orange with no officer to provide first aid. In his case, his fellow incarcerated people took him to the medical clinic after insisting that the officer in the control room allowed them out of their living unit to do so. 

This isn't an isolated case of neglect. For example, Rikers CEOs had failed to take Mr. Pagan to nine medical appointments before he died with no officer present, despite the fact that he was hallucinating, vomiting on himself, and barely able to walk. In a different lawsuit that the city is entangled in, in which the judge found them in contempt this week, the city's lawyers, quote, "freely acknowledge deficiencies in its ability to escort individuals in custody to clinic appointments due to insufficient staff presence," end quote. 

There are a maze of reasons why, with the richest staffing ratios and highest cost of any jail system in the country, our city doesn't have enough people available to staff its jails. That's because, over the past several decades, an overlapping raft of laws, regulations, contracts, and practices that have the force of precedent have accumulated that make it nearly impossible for the city to conventionally manage its way out of this dilemma. 

These include unlimited sick leave, the inability to hire qualified supervisory staff outside of the city's correction department, excessively long disciplinary proceedings, restrictions on redeploying correctional staff as needed, and the inability to terminate staff who AWOL-- that is, those people who don't come to work and don't call, which happened 5,000 times last July and August. 

All of this stems from the undue influence of correctional officers' unions and the willingness of elected officials to hand out excessively generous benefits that render the department a nightmare to run and reform. These amount to an internecine web of laws and rules and stultifying red tape that, in my opinion, makes it impossible to resolve the chaos and violence in Rikers in time to save today's incarcerated people from harm, or even worse, death. 

That is not because today's mayor or commissioner have failed. They've barely gotten started. This was my position for the seven months I was commissioner and I advocated for with City Hall, even if it meant that that receiver would have replaced me. This forum's co-organizer, Liz Glazer, who was director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice under Mayor de Blasio, also reluctantly came to believe that the problem is a structural one that can only be solved with a different kind of power. 

Both of us, along with Mayor Giuliani's correction commissioner, Mike Jacobson, who's on the second panel, continue to urge the current occupants of City Hall to do so now. Receivers can cut through much of that stultifying red tape, because the requirement to run a constitutional jail can trump a contract or state or local law. 

Receivers don't abrogate contracts or laws willy-nilly. But if those regulations, laws, or contractual obligations hamper the running of a safe and constitutional jail, as they have for the duration of the Nunez consent decree, then a judicious receiver may, under certain circumstances, abrogate them or request that the court do so. 

If my son or daughter worked on Rikers or was incarcerated there, because make no mistake about it, staff and incarcerated people alike are suffering there, I'd want the city to work with the federal court, the monitor and the plaintiffs to agree to a brand of receivership, details to be negotiated by the lawyers, like they were able to do in Chicago. The tragedy of daily violence and failure to provide safe and decent jails requires nothing less. 

I thank our colleagues from Chicago for generously giving of their valuable time today to discuss how their negotiated transitional administrator may serve as an example for our city leaders to follow at this critical juncture. I also thank our speakers, moderators, and esteemed panel of knowledgeable New York leaders for their willingness to participate in today's event. The moderators will introduce both panels when it's their turn to speak. 

For now, I'd like to turn the mike over to Sara Norman, managing attorney of the Prison Law Office in San Quentin, California. Sara and her colleagues brought the landmark case over constitutionally inadequate medical care that had been producing a death in California's prisons every six to seven days. Upon their motion, the court implemented a receiver, which dramatically improved conditions. We're grateful to have Sara's long experience with us today to explain what receivers are and how California's receiver has improved health care for people incarcerated there. 

Thank you very much. I've been asked to, as Vinnie said, to provide a basic introduction to how receivers can work and how they have worked in California. The concept of a receivership is hundreds of years old. It was first implemented in the chancery courts in England as early as the 16th century in the context of business litigation. 

So when a corporation was failing and was in, say, bankruptcy proceedings in court, courts would sometimes appoint a receiver to manage the affairs of the corporation in order to secure the assets for the pendency of the litigation. And that would happen when, again, the business was failing, and the people running it, the officers of the corporation or the managers, could not be trusted to manage the assets in a way that was consistent with the court's ultimate decision making. 

So the concept has been around for a long time. It's not uncommon in the business world. And it also has been used in US courts, again, not infrequently, in the business world. In the 1960s, for the first time, a federal court imported the concept from the business world to the civil rights realm and applied this remedy of a receivership to the civil rights context in school desegregation cases. 

So the courts were presented with situations in which they had not a failed corporation, but a failed institution, a school district that operated based on racist, segregationist principles, that violated the rights of students and refused to reform. So faced with the recalcitrance of the local institution and the serious harm being inflicted on students, the federal courts appointed receivers to manage and run those institutions. 

The reason this concept was importable into the civil rights realm is something called equity jurisdiction. So federal courts have equitable jurisdiction to fashion remedies that meet the needs of the situation. So equity is something that is distinguished from sort of the strict rules of law. Equity gives courts the ability to be a little bit creative. In fact, courts have a duty to secure remedies to fix violations of federal rights. 

So the courts in these cases have used their equitable jurisdiction to appoint a receiver to be a little bit creative in situations in which the institution is failing, the harm is very significant, the defendants are recalcitrant or hellbent on refusing to comply with the court's orders, or some combination of incompetence and malfeasance, and no other efforts have succeeded. The court feels helpless in the face of the situation in which people's rights are being trampled on. And the solutions are not working. 

So since the '60s, when this method has been used in desegregation cases, federal courts have appointed receivers in prison and jail cases and in a few scattered other cases involving local and state agencies. It is a remedy that has been used very sparingly. It is very drastic. But it is something that can be effective when no other course is effective in securing the remedies in the case. 

I want to talk for a minute about the powers of a receiver. Vinnie touched on it briefly. And I wanted to expand that a little and talk about how that looks in the California context. So first of all, the receiver's powers derive entirely from the federal court's powers. And they're established by federal court order. 

One of the most interesting aspects of federal court's authority that the receiver can make use of is the ability to waive state laws as needed to secure-- as needed to remove barriers to a remedy in a case. So for example, in California, early on, the receiver asked the federal court to waive state laws that set forth a peer review process that made it practically impossible to fire incompetent doctors. 

So in fact, the union, the union representing the doctors, came in on the side of the receiver on this. It was something that they had talked about, worked out. And the union supported it. So the federal court made some adjustments and made it possible for the receiver to remove that barrier, to remove the incompetent doctors. 

A receiver is not all powerful. So the receiver has to work within the governmental framework. And just brief civics reminder, we have separation of powers with an executive, judicial, and a legislative branch, right? So when a receiver is appointed, basically, it's the judicial branch reaching into the executive branch and saying, we're going to take that over for now, because you can't do it. 

But ordinarily, when you have a state or local agency, the funding is secured through the legislative branch, right? So the executive submits a budget to the legislature, who then determines what will be funded. That separation of powers principle doesn't go away just because there's a receiver. The receiver doesn't commandeer funds from the legislature. You still have to go through whatever budgetary processes are necessary. 

And I raise this because it's a limitation on the power of the receiver. And if you have a situation where you have not just a recalcitrant executive, but you have a recalcitrant legislature, then the federal court has a pretty significant problem. We did face this concern in California early in the receivership, when the receiver had established a building program, a multibillion-dollar building program, because California built a huge number of prisons without the medical facilities to treat people who were incarcerated in them. 

And as a result, people were suffering and dying, because they could not-- there weren't facilities to treat them. Some prisons in the exam spaces that doctors and nurses used didn't even have hand-washing capabilities. So the receiver had a whole plan to build medical hospital prisons and to build out clinic space in existing prisons, multibillion dollar. 

The legislature and the governor balked at that. And there was a bit of a standoff that was resolved ultimately through negotiation. And a reduced building program was passed through and was funded. So that's sort of a taste of how the receiver's powers are significant, but also need to be negotiated with other branches of government. 

So I wanted to talk next about a few of the choices that a judge would face if deciding to appoint a receiver. So one of the choices the judge faces-- and again, judges have incredible leeway here, right? They're kind of making this up. They have the opportunity to try to fashion the receivership to meet the needs of the particular situation. There's not much of a playbook here. 

So one of the choices the judge faces is whether to replace the current administrators or to provide a receiver who has essentially a parallel authority structure that is meant to work in collaboration with the current head of corrections. And that's kind of what we have in California. The receiver runs and operates all of the medical decision making, so has the power to hire, fire, negotiate with unions, everything like that, on the medical side. 

But in reality, the receiver exercises that authority sparingly and often works in collaboration with the secretary of the Department of Corrections. Particularly during the pandemic, they would often issue memos to all staff and to all incarcerated people together and work hand in hand. I think a lot of the-- as far as I can tell, a lot of the back and forth between the receiver and the secretary took place behind the scenes. And they tried to present a united front, which, I think, is far, far more effective in the long run. 

Another choice a court could face is whether to appoint someone as receiver who looks like the people they're working with, a corrections administrator, a corrections chief. Or do you appoint someone as a receiver who has very different skill set, a turnaround specialist, a management specialist, someone who's a fixer, basically? 

In California, our receiver running medical care in the entire prison system is a law professor who had been called in-- Clark Kelso. He had been called in by the state in other situations prior to stepping in as receiver to fix messes. He was somebody who fixes things, who knows how to hire the best staff, who knows how to bring good minds to the problems and to solve them. 

One of the benefits of appointing someone who does not look like the people in the system, someone from outside the system, is that they operate with a certain degree of independence. They don't have preformed alliances. They're outside of the political process. And that can be very valuable. 

Another question for the court is how to find a receiver. It's a tough call. Do you have the parties propose various alternatives, or do you hire a search firm? Do you do a national search? And finally, one of the most important questions the judge would face is how to return the system back to the defendants. How do you wind up a receivership? 

Do you set a rigid timeline that hurries people along the way and gives people some security that the state or the local government will have the powers returned to them? Do you apply metrics and measurements that determine when the system is capable of self-governance? As you can tell from my language, I certainly favor the latter. I think timelines are made to be broken, particularly in governmental matters. And you want to set yourself up for success. 

So in California, the receiver has a process of delegation of individual prisons back to the state when the determination-- when the receiver makes the determination that they are capable of managing medical care on their own. And to this point, the receiver has delegated slightly more than half of the prisons back to the state. There's a process by which we, as plaintiff's counsel, are allowed to research, and review, and discuss, and debate, and oppose those decisions. So there's input from both sides. 

The receiver has retained control of systemic processes. So for example, COVID response is in the hands of the receiver. And that has been an important part of the process. And presumably, once all the individual prisons are delegated, then there will be a process of delegating the overall management processes back to the state. 

So I wanted to talk for just a minute, in the few minutes I have remaining, or going over-- I'm not really sure where my time is-- I wanted to talk just for a minute a little bit more directly about the California experience and why we ended up with the receiver. And I'm going to read a quote to you from the judge's opinion in 2005 making the determination that a receivership was warranted in this context. 

This also appears in the materials on the Vital City website. But I think it's important to hear the words of the judge. And this is Judge Kelton Henderson, who is an extraordinary figure in the judicial and civil rights world, who has since retired from the case. But in making the determination to appoint a receiver, the judge said this. "By all accounts, the California prison medical care system is broken beyond repair. The harm already done in this case to California's prison inmate population could not be more grave. And the threat of future injury and death is virtually guaranteed in the absence of drastic action. 

The court has given defendants every reasonable opportunity to bring its prison medical system up to constitutional standards. And it is beyond reasonable dispute that the state has failed. Indeed, it is uncontested, an uncontested fact that on average, an inmate in one of California's prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies in the medical delivery system. This statistic, awful as it is, barely provides a window into the waste of human life occurring behind California's prison walls due to the gross failures of the medical delivery system." 

So I read those words particularly because I think they resonate in this context and because the court found that the bureaucratic incompetence, intransigence, and learned incapacity made it impossible for the state to manage the system without further grievous harm to the people in its custody. And so with that, I will turn it back to the Chicago crew to describe their efforts in that direction. 

Great. Thank you so much, Sarah. That was really such an incredible and enlightening description of what's a really complicated idea, an awesome power, a last resort, and great to understand also, as we'll learn from our next panel, the kinds of pitfalls that also exist. Getting-- you have to get the right person as a receiver. How long does it go on for? What happens if it doesn't work? 

So our next panel, we're so grateful to Cook County. For those of you tuning in who don't know, Chicago is in Cook County, I think produces-- is probably sort of the biggest population center in Cook County. And our next panel was involved in the receivership, or as it was called there, a temporary administrator of the juvenile facility in Chicago. 

I'm just going to really quickly give kind of a one-sentence introduction of the cast. You can go to either the Columbia Justice Lab website or Vital City and have a full bio of each of them, just incredibly impressive people. So Teresa Abreu ran the detention facility while the temporary administrator was in place and crafted and implemented major operational changes that we'll talk about. She had earlier come from the state's attorney's office that represented the county in the litigation and subsequently, and interestingly, worked for the union that represented the correctional officers and worked as their counsel. 

John Curran worked in the state's attorney's office during the period the detention facility was under the administrator and has great insights from the county's perspective. And he's currently an Illinois State Senator. Tom Geraghty is a law professor from Northwestern. He was what's called the next friend in the litigation-- we'll talk a little bit about that-- specifically standing in for and representing the rights of youth who were detained. And Ben Wolf was the legal director of the ACLU who led the plaintiffs in the challenge over many, many years, as we'll learn, at the detention facility. 

So this is a correctional facility that faced many of the same issues as New York City, successfully shaped and used this power, and ultimately restored the facility to county operations, and a lot of similarities to New York City-- a big city, troubled facility with high violence, inhumane conditions, failing management, decades of litigation, a powerful union, complicated politics. 

So I want to jump right in. And Ben, perhaps I could start with you. Could you give us a little bit of a cliff notes of what were the conditions that spurred the litigation? And what was the role that the litigation played in persuading the county to agree to an administrator? 

Thank you, Liz. We have a sort of a checklist of possible deficient conditions in an institution when we take a look at it. And the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Center pretty much had all of them. It was chronically overcrowded. Kids were often sleeping in day rooms on the floor. It was completely chaotic. They had no way of determining whether staff showed up on time. 

There were constant fights between the youth and an enormous amount of abuse by staff. We think there were about 15 or 20 staff people that just chronically beat up the youth there. Most of the staff were not like that. But there was a group that nobody wanted to fire that was there that created an atmosphere of violence. 

The place was filthy, riddled with rodents and insects. And the youth themselves often complained about the fact that they would have bugs crawling on them when they went to sleep. The health and mental health services, the kind of thing involved in the California litigation, were a chaotic mess. The institution was frequently sending the youth to the hospital because they had serious asthma attacks, for example, because nobody had provided an inhaler, or broken bones from injuries that went untreated and eventually resulted in hospitalization. So what we faced was a chronically dangerous and mismanaged institution when we sued in 1999. 

And there were many years of litigation leading up to the moment when, ultimately, there was an agreement with the county. How is it that those many years of litigation got to the point where the county agreed that this was the right way forward to have a receiver? And I'd love it-- I know each of our other panelists have pieces of this story. And I'll try to orchestrate it. But also feel free to leap in. But Ben, do you want to just start? 

Sure. I'll start, but obviously, Senator Curran, Tom Geraghty, and Teresa Abreu very well all have a perspective. We took each of the steps that one takes before a receiver to try to address the problem. So first, the memorandum of agreement, the consent decree required that the county submit a plan to fix the problem. The county never could come up with an adequate plan. 

We had monitors in place who kept reporting some of the problems, not as many as we think were there. And our next friend, Tom Geraghty, who taught at Northwestern Law School, arranged constant interviews with the children at the facility with the youth, conducted by Northwestern law students, which was a great resource. And they kept telling us that this step wasn't working and that step wasn't working. 

Finally, when all of those things didn't work, we asked the court to appoint a more aggressive monitor. We called her a compliance administrator who practically lived at the facility, Brenda Welch, and reported how bad things were and that things hadn't gotten better. And we had an independent group of experts craft a plan that was supposed to let the county know how to fix these problems. And the county neglected that plan and chose politics over the choices of the experts again and again. And the problems persisted. 

So finally, we filed a motion to appoint a receiver. And the judge wanted us to negotiate a remedy. At first, we didn't succeed. Then the judge did set a date for an evidentiary hearing. And we had productive negotiations with the county. I'm not sure if John was there yet. But his predecessors, Pat Driscoll and Pat Blanchard, were very committed to try to solve the problems. 

I mean, they would have fought us if we had a hearing. But we had principal negotiations. And it resulted in the appointment of a transitional administrator. And we agreed on the person once we agreed on the process. 

So essentially, at the point at which there was going to be an evidentiary hearing in which all the conditions that you've described, might have been described in court in pretty vivid detail, Senator, from your point of view, was that an important piece in persuading the county to accept an administrator? Or were there other currents? 

The factual evidence being compiled by the plaintiffs-- evidentiary was put together, that was critical in convincing the county officials that going to trial, these are going to be the facts [INAUDIBLE] allowed the likelihood, the strong likelihood that we would not prevail. And you lose a certain part of control in the litigation, that it was best to have more say with the appointment of the TA. And the county officials did ultimately see that as a more productive path. And we were able to agree and present an agreed request for a TA to be appointed. 

And it's interesting that in your situation, it wasn't called a receiver. It was called a temporary administrator. What was the reason? What did that-- I don't know whether Tom or one of you wants to weigh in on-- did that reflect some kind of negotiation with the county? 

I can weigh in on that for a moment. I think the need as we saw it back then, and Ben and Senator Curran have described the history of this very well-- the need was to have someone in place in the detention center as an administrator and someone who would run the detention center on a day-to-day basis, putting together a team of really independent administrators to manage the center. 

And I think you'll hear more about that, how important that was, from Teresa, who was really in charge of that process. But we recognize that it probably wasn't enough to have someone on the outside, maybe a receiver who was not there on a day-to-day basis, and that we needed someone who was actually an administrator, and who had administrative experience, and who could put together a team to manage the center. 

Yeah. It's a big thing for government to hand over this kind of power and to work with the team to shape what the order is, meaning what the order is that shapes those powers. Was there anything in particular that, from each of your perspectives, made it more palatable or made it seem like really, the only way to address the conditions from the county's point of view? 

Well, really, having the-- I think Tom hit on a very important point. Having the administrator actually be the one running the facility rather-- the dynamic in county government, certainly in Cook, the facility was a department under the Office of the President, the county board. So having someone appointed by the county board running the facility as you try to reform it with outside entities monitoring, ultimately, as much as maybe they work with and lean on that administrator, that administrator had to go up the overhead structure, political, or oversight structure of county government. And that would ultimately prove to be burdensome. 

So having the TA actually placed with the ability to go to court if they weren't getting the requisite cooperation and relief from the county government certainly I think was a dynamic that-- I mean, you see all the attempts to comply with the memorandum of agreement prior to the appointment of the TA failed. That's what that dynamic, I think, really set it on its course to ultimately resolve the issues. 

So I want to move a little bit to how the receiver was selected, what criteria you used, how that order was shaped, because that, as Sara has pointed out, was one of the most important things, who it is you get, and how that person is able to work with and select a team. I'm wondering if one of you could speak to that. 

We needed someone who had run and fixed juvenile detention facilities that had problems. And Earl Dunlap, the person that we ended up choosing, both sides ended up choosing, and the judge agreed to appoint, was the leading person in the field, really, who had a record all over the country of addressing these problems. 

We also, because we were so concerned about the politically corrupting influence of Cook County at that time, we needed somebody who was completely independent, as Sara Norman said they needed in California, somebody who had no ties to anybody in county government in the City of Chicago and any of the local forces. And Earl was that. He was a strong, and independent, and knowledgeable. 

So I'm wondering, would anybody else like to comment on that? No? All right. So one of the things that people are often concerned about is how long it takes when a receiver is in place. A receiver really is kind of the last resort. These are-- in our own situation, the monitor has described these polycentric circles of dysfunction going back multiple, multiple years, and how hard it is to unwind that and to create kind of a management structure. 

I'm wondering, Teresa, you were so deeply involved in trying to figure out where the issues were, how, operationally, to address them, how to deal with the day-to-day politics of people who were in the facility, who are still in the facility, who you fired, who you didn't. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you approached that task. 

Sure. So I think it's important to note-- I mean, it took about two years to even partially stabilize the facility once the transitional administrator got there. He brought in a team of experts in various subject matters to come in and work on all the different areas that were under the consent decree. And he really wanted to make sure that there was an internal team that could implement all of these changes, because at the end of the day, we want to make sure all of the changes that are in place can be sustained. 

So one thing he wanted was someone from the state attorney's office that had a strong labor and employment background. So it was someone from the inside that can come over to the facility and work with him and really work with all the labor and employment issues, because what we do know is that the staff are critical to any change. 

So we had to make sure that we understood what were the problems with staffing. We knew it was numbers. We knew that the type of people we wanted working with youth were changing. It wasn't the old correctional model. And we had to really create process, procedures, hiring processes, trying to remove some of the red tape that existed to be able to bring that on. 

So he was able to form an internal team that we work with every single day, because I think that's critical, that the transitional administrator was there. His experts were there and worked to make the change, but also to make sure that the bench was being built, that everyone who was there could continue all the changes. 

So [INAUDIBLE] working side by side with people who already were in the facility and had already been working there. 

Or hiring people that could come in, but can-- that planned on staying there post-transition. And so through the court orders-- because the most important thing, and I think what led to the success, is the collaboration between all the parties, so plaintiff's counsel, defendant's counsel, the federal judge, all the parties that were involved, because it really did take so many people and so many groups of people to, one, try to bring the population down, as well as try to keep the environment safe. So-- 

That's quite a tall order. I mean, those folks, including the union and others, may have had a history that may not have always been totally perfect. 

No. 

How did you build that kind of relationship so that it was-- so that it was productive? 

Sure. So through the court order, we were able to have a third-party recruiting firm come in and really kind of take over. The transitional administrator tried to work within the existing processes to onboard people. And it wasn't working. We weren't able to bring people on as quickly as we needed to. So we were able to have this third-party expert come in and assist with that function, but also work hand in hand with the current HR department. 

We also had to bring in a third-party security firm, because we needed more bodies. So I know one of the things that were mentioned is even if you had the numbers of staff, you had so many people that were out that from a day-to-day standpoint, you couldn't staff safely. So we had to bring in those resources to help supplement the current staff. 

But really, what happened is we had a very significant plan. So we had to change the type of people that were working with you. So all of our basically direct care staff had to reapply for their positions. So as you mentioned, the unions are very strong in Cook County. I think the most important thing is, at the end of the day, management and union have the same goal, which is to create a safe and healthy environment for staff and for kids. 

Now, do both sides always agree on how to get there? Often not. And during this process, there was often many disagreements about how to get where we needed to be. But I think we tried to get it-- from me, I always look at the unions as a partner to change as opposed to looking at them as the enemy and really try to embrace and have them be a part of the process. 

And when there were times that they either didn't want to or couldn't be a partner is when we had to go above and beyond, maybe bring in the powers of the federal court, such as bringing a third-party staffing firm to come in and do it. So I mean, it was a very difficult time. We had so many death threats, so many significant death threats, I had an armed guard. So I mean, it was-- not only were you trying to change culture, trying to improve conditions for youth, but all the stress of those other things coming in, and it really being a scary environment. 

And so I think you just really need to have people who are passionate about working with youth. I think the thing that the transitional administrator understood is you have to bring people with leadership skills, even if they're not in leadership positions. For me, I ended up running the facility. I had no operational knowledge, right? I was taught all of those things through it. 

But he could see that the leadership team that he put together, and it was-- trust me, it wasn't me. There was plenty of other people on the team that helped to make it successful. But he could see that they had the ability to do so. And then he just provided them the resources. So what we need to do is make sure that the staff that we have-- as Ben said, there were a lot of really good staff-- is giving them the tools to be successful, because at the end of the day, we want them to go home to their families. And we want them to work successfully with the kids. You can't do that if you're working a million hours. 

One of the things that you mentioned, Teresa, and Ben, you mentioned, and Sara sort of noted about the sparing use of these awesome powers, is when you decide to use those awesome powers of the receiver and when you don't. And I wonder if you guys could speak to, what is it that you thought you were able to do in Cook County with a receiver that was not possible with the previous decades of monitors and other efforts? 

The transitional administrator worked for the court. And so he had the ability to go to his boss, the federal judge, and say, this isn't working. I recommend we do this to fix it. And that was a whole different dynamic. He would try the procurement system in Cook County. He couldn't get anything done for months. He would try the hiring system, couldn't get anything done for months. He would try to get current staff to keep the place clean, couldn't do it. 

And he would go to the judge and present the compelling suffering that was happening as a result of these terrible problems and say, this is how I want to fix it. And the judge granted him that authority. Sometimes the union opposed it. But they never made a good case until one much later for how there was another way to do it within the current framework. 

And Ben, that's super important, is the fact that these court orders allowed us to bypass the procurement process. So in the beginning, the transitional administrator tried to go about the typical processes in county to bring in any sort of product or resources. I mean, it was so bad that he had to use his own money to pay for things for kids. Staff had to occasionally buy things as well. 

And so through the court order, we were be able to set up a separate funding process that third-party contractors could be contracted with, supplies and necessities could be purchased very quickly. I mean, there were days where staff were running to Costco and Sam's Club and just trying to get things in that the kids needed, because it was just so difficult to get it. 

So again, I think he really tried to work within the process. But once it hit a point where it was creating a dangerous environment, and we weren't seeing the speed that we needed, that's when we had to go and use those powers with the federal court. 

And I think the other thing was that Ben, and Teresa, and Earl, and Brenda Welch established a very, very, very credible relationship with the judges who were involved, because the judges knew-- and we had two judges assigned to the case in this litigation. The judges knew that they were hearing from people who were in the detention center on a daily basis-- more than a daily basis, sometimes 24/7-- and that the information that was being provided to them was accurate and was being provided by people who were really dedicated to the mission. 

So that relationship, which spanned about 7 and 1/2 years or so, was critically important to the process of improvement. And also, when we did need to go to court, it meant the judges listened to the-- listened to Earl, listened to Brenda, listen to Teresa, listened to Ben very carefully. 

And Tom, that issue of actually building that trust with the judge is so critically based on actually knowing what's going on in the facility and being able, in a clear-eyed way, to say, this is working or this isn't. Things are getting better or they're not. And you, as the next friend, with your students, actually played a very important role in having kind of a finger on the pulse speed of how your clients-- what the conditions are with your clients. I was wondering if you could describe that a little bit. 

Well, we put together a team. Over the years, we put together each year a team of-- I'm remembering 20 to 25 law students each year who would go out to the detention center and interview the kids, the youth in the detention center. We developed a protocol for those interviews so that the interviews covered very specific information about conditions within the detention center. And that information was provided to Ben and his team at the ACLU. 

And we also did have to secure, and we were able to secure, the cooperation of the Cook County Public Defender, because that was an issue as to whether or not our law students should be talking to clients of the Public Defender's Office. That was something we had to negotiate. And we did. 

And then the other factor, I think, was that some of-- there was a community of lawyers who had experience in representing youth in the-- who were confined in the detention center. And so there was sort of a critical mass of lawyers who knew, apart from, or maybe in addition to the information that was collected by the students, what was actually going on at the JTDC, because many of us had spent a lot of time there, interviewing our clients and observing the conditions. And this went back even before the lawsuit was filed. 

One of the things that one of you said to me, not that we prepped beforehand at all, but was that court orders don't make hard problems easy. You had to know when to go to court to enforce rights and when to take another route. So it was a delicate kind of balance. And I imagine the delicacy of that balance was particularly sharp when it came to firing, potentially, and hiring. 

And kind of, as I understand it, you really reshaped both the management structure and just the operations of the facility. And I'm wondering if one of you could sort of talk about what that process was like and how you-- Teresa, you had mentioned, it took two years, really, to get to a point where you began to have the foundations of a well-run facility. I'm wondering if you could talk to how those personnel processes happened, what the relationship was with the union, how you resolved what must have been a difficult set of circumstances. 

Yeah. I mean, I think we wanted to-- where staff were willing to make the changes that were needed through the reform effort, we wanted to make sure that we can retain and train those staff. And so that was why we introduced a new hiring process, had people reapply for positions. But we had over 200 staff that did lose their jobs based on the new process, the new criteria. And so we were able to keep many of our staff. But we also had to help transition those staff out, help them find other opportunities. 

I'm not going to pretend it was a cakewalk with the unions. There was-- I've been on the union side after the fact. It's very difficult when you're there to represent your members. And you have federal court orders that you can't do it, because they're saying, we're going to do this anyway. So really, the relationship ebbed and flowed throughout all those years of doing it. And I'm sure it continues to have its ups and downs. 

But again, I think, for me personally, as long as I started every meeting, every negotiation with that common goal being the focus, we were really able to work through many of the issues. Now, there were definitely significant ones, like I said, where certain sections of the collective bargaining agreement were suspended. And so that's how we were able to bring in third party, change the recruiting and hiring process, changed how we staffed, because we were a huge facility. But we broke it up into 10 separate detention centers under one roof. 

And staffing mirrored that, meaning someone from one unit couldn't work in another. And so that was a big issue and a big point of contention with seniority rights and some various other things. But I think what we tried to do is create a healthy environment for staff as well, because if we didn't focus on staff wellness, and we didn't want people to work seven days a week, double shifts every day, there's no way that they could work with youth in a positive way if they were constantly under that pressure, right? 

Because what we were requiring staff to do with this change took a lot more emotional toll and emotional energy than what used to happen 20 years ago. And so it's-- again, you have to work collaboratively when you can. 

Can you explain that a little bit? 

Which part? 

What you meant by the emotional toll? 

Sure. I mean, the old model was staff guard. There really wasn't any expectation to engage with inmates, or youth, or incarcerated folks. Everyone calls it something different with adults and kids. But now we were asking for them to exhibit-- using behavior management skills, learning new skills to talk and work with youth. 

We weren't locking kids up all day long. They had to create activities and meaningful activities, culturally relevant activities. I think the important thing too is, unfortunately, 98% of our youth were youth of color. And the focus during this transition was making sure the staffing mirrored that. So that was a big focus for the transitional administrator. Almost all of the leadership staff were people of color to mirror the youth that they'd be working with every day. 

But really, it just-- you have to engage with the kids all day long. And you have-- even if they're being aggressive or they're upset is they have to work with the youth and work to calm them down so that they don't have to go hands on. They're not getting risk of getting hurt. But they're not locked up in their rooms like they used to do. So that was much easier. 

At night, staff had to make sure they were awake and checking on youth every 15 minutes, or jurisdictions have different frames. So it was a total different expectation and a very different set of skill set, one that they didn't have or didn't expect to have in the beginning, that we had to make sure that those that stayed were able to make those changes. 

So interesting. And Senator, it was such a change in correctional practice, correctional theory. It affected operations. It affected collective bargaining agreements, how power was deployed. To what degree do you think, from the county's point of view, the receiver, to some degree-- this may be the wrong word-- but to some degree, gave cover to changes that the county believed would lead to a safer environment? 

Well, I would say it also gave the county a lot of heartburn too. I mean, costs increased significantly with reclassifying those positions and raising the educational requirements of the position. It also came significant salary increases for all staff that remained. And that was, I'm sure, part of the TA's [INAUDIBLE] staff. They had a safer environment to work. They had a more collaborative environment to work. They had better direction. And they were making more money. 

I think from [INAUDIBLE] there was-- early on, there was a lot of resistance to the TA and what he was rolling out. And I think we got some change in 2010, when President Preckwinkle was elected. She had come over from the City of Chicago as an alderwoman. And she had a very, I think, different perspective on youth in an incarcerated setting, and still does today. She's still the county president, and created some departments within the county that were more collaborative. 

So as a client, my client became more collaborative and more engaged on the litigation after that occurred, which certainly, I think, increased the level of cooperation from the county. There were things that the county could not do. Some of the procurement stuff mentioned-- I mean, you would have to have a court order, because otherwise, county government has to have certain systems and checks in place. And that's why bureaucracy government often moves a little slower, because you have to ensure everything is appropriate. 

So my client-- I think, as Earl got things more set up, more structured, he refined his policies. At the same time, the governmental entity involved certainly started to buy in more and more into this process. So I think it came together very nicely. On my end, certainly made my job easier in representing Cook County. 

So at the end of the day, you guys have described this very long period of lead-up of decades of litigation finally entering into the sort of extraordinary order providing special powers to the temporary administrator, or is often called the receiver, and then seven years of very, very hard work, but that actually, I think, and you guys tell me, in this line of work, seven years to untangle this degree of complex problems is actually considered pretty quick. Has that been your experience? I mean, each of you have such deep experience in these kinds of litigation. And why-- 

I would just offer that I would consider it six, because I think the facility was a year earlier. But we had the complicating factor of-- 

We're the experts [INAUDIBLE]. 

--every other pre-trial juvenile detention facility in the state was run by the chief judge of the particular circuit. Cook County was the anomaly. So the state had stepped in and passed a law to put the facility under the office of the chief judge of Cook County. So we had the added complication of also transitioning the center to a new employer, not-- the receiver or the TA didn't have to bring it back to the existing employer, but also had to get a new employer integrated and up to speed on operations. And I would say that was the last year from my perspective. I don't know if-- 

So whether six or seven. I'll give you six, blink of an eye. Do you want to comment a little bit on why the expectations-- why it takes so long to change a failing institution into one that provides the kind of safe and dignified environment that you produced in the end? 

One, it's a very-- oh, sorry, Ben. 

You go, T. 

I'll just be quick. It really is much more complex than I think people realize. With Cook County, I-- and I've worked in other court orders, monitoring. I've never seen one with so many identified issues. I mean, they're from sanitation to food service, mental health, medical, education, I mean, fire plans, cameras. I mean, there was-- everything that could go wrong went wrong. 

And so really, that time frame is a very amazing time frame. And I think how we got there was through this legal process, having multiple experts in all these different areas that could come. And basically, we had to create multidisciplinary teams where it wasn't working in silos. Everyone had to work together. All those areas, functional areas, had to work together. 

And so I think making sure that the people that were involved wanted to see that change happen, because really, at the end of the day, if you don't see that or want that, you're not going to get there. And even today, we have some of the same folks that were brought in under the transitional administrator that are still there today working through this, trying to maintain what was created by the team. 

You have a culture, an organizational culture, that involves hundreds of people, almost all of whom have only worked in this broken, dysfunctional, violent, filthy environment, and you have to transform that with training, with leadership, with time, with hiring new people, with perhaps having to get rid of the abusive people. And it takes time to change an organizational culture, and not to mention all the problems Teresa raised about bringing in the right equipment, and getting the doors to work right, and all of the kind of physical procurement issues involved. 

And changing an organizational culture takes several years. And it might be easier if you had a lot of people that worked in a good place and knew what that was like. But we didn't. And I don't think Rikers does. 

Yeah. But ultimately, you guys were incredibly successful. I mean, stats don't say everything. But they certainly say something. There was a 22% reduction in recidivism and people returning to the facility 18 months after they had left. And in comparison of measures with other facilities across the country, sort of key metrics on safety, and well-being, and other things, the Cook County facility really stood head and shoulders above it. 

Do you have any wisdom for us on how you maintain-- and ultimately, the facility was returned to the county. How do you maintain that? I think, Ben, you're always quick with a quip. But you had said something like, it's not so easy to fix a broken culture. But it's also not so easy to break a fixed culture. And I wonder if you guys have any insight for us about what happens afterwards. How do you maintain your gains? 

Well, it's a similar thing. If the organizational culture involves a lot of people who've seen it work right, then that has some staying power. But with broken leadership-- and I'm not saying the current leadership is broken. I really don't have much experience with it. But with broken leadership and time, it is possible for places to deteriorate. 

And I hope that hasn't happened. It certainly isn't where it was when we filed the lawsuit. But you need public sources of accountability, including independent inspections, including data that's made public about performance. And the transitional administrator created some of that. Some of it has been watered down. But some of it hasn't. 

Yeah, I was also going to say, if you have strong policies, procedures, and quality assurance in place, and it's so ingrained into the day to day, like Ben mentioned, maybe some of it gets watered down. But I think it's really difficult to ever go back to where that was. And if that is kind of leading your day-to-day operation and making sure you're following those things, and continuing to do best practices out there, and making sure you're as transparent as possible, I think, then people are still looking at. And you're still trying to do the right thing by the kids and staff. 

Great. Well, I want to just wrap up with a bit of a lightning round. Each of you brings such different perspectives on this and have had such deep experience. I'm wondering if I could go around, and if you had one piece of advice to give a jurisdiction that may be on the brink of a receivership, is trying to figure out the way forward, what would that be about what you've learned or the things that a jurisdiction like New York should pay attention to and be most concerned about? 

Ben, I'll start with you, because I'm so fascinated by the role of the next friend in the juvenile context and potentially what that kind of role might look like even in an adult context, but whatever you're comfortable saying, Ben. 

As you quoted me saying, was litigation doesn't turn our problems into easy ones. And so even with an outstanding transitional administrator, and a terrific supporting staff, and judges who wanted to do the right thing, and counsel for the county who were trying to fix the problem-- even if we had our disagreements, we always felt like they were trying to fix the problem-- and a passionate next friend who was in touch with the children and created a mechanism that we had information from our clients all the time-- even with all of that, it still took over seven years. 

And so I would say, don't be impatient. And keep listening to the incarcerated people about what's really happening. And frankly, I do worry that a US attorney's office isn't always the best forum for that. Plaintiffs' lawyers need pressure on them, just like everybody else. And they need to hear if their clients are unhappy. And I think the structure has to be set up so that the court and the US attorneys hear that. 

Great. And Tom, maybe I could go to you next. Apologies, but I-- because you certainly provided a lot of that accountability structure and many other things. What would your advice be? 

Well, I think two things. First of all, I think we were working in an environment and during a time when there was a lot of interest in what was going on and in our juvenile courts. And so there was a lot of outside public support and support of county government for what we were trying to do. That's number one. And mobilizing that support, I think, is extremely important. And keeping the public's focus on the problems that Vinnie described, I think, would be important. 

The other thing is, as I said before, putting a team of really talented people on site. And the reason I like the term temporary administrator or administrator is because the key to this, in my view, was really effective and dedicated administration-- people who were on site, who were there every day, who were visiting the facility, who were in touch with the kids, was absolutely critical. And Teresa and her team, Earl and his team, and Brenda Welch really, I think, put the whole thing together. And it was just very gratifying to be able to rely on what they were doing on a day-to-day basis. 

Fantastic. And Senator? 

I would just say-- I would say quickly, it was to the county's great benefit to be at the table negotiating the appointment of the TA, negotiating the powers that the TA would exercise in that appointment order. And any government entity, once appointed, it's obviously in their best interest to be an active participant. And I think through the period of time of great transition under Earl, the county was an active participant. So that was definitely in the county's best interests. 

Fantastic. And Teresa, do you want to give us your final parting words of wisdom before we-- 

Sure. Well, Tom took part of my thunder. But really, the key is, you have to have the right people, and understanding that one person cannot bring this change about. It has got to be a team of people with a shared vision. And start identifying those people that believe in the direction that Rikers is going. They don't have to be in leadership roles. But start identifying those people and start getting them ready to be a part of this change, and just continuing to keep your eye on the prize, which is making things better for staff and the people that are incarcerated. 

Well, thank each of you so much for taking the time, and helping us here, and showing us an example of receivership that was incredibly successful. So thank you for your wisdom. I appreciate your time. Ah. Errol, over to you. 

OK. 

The New York City crowd roars in. 

Thanks very much, Liz. I know everybody in this next panel was watching as closely as I was and taking notes along the way. And we thank you for staying with us. I'm going to be speaking. And we'll talk in this order, with Gladys Carrion, former commissioner of the New York City Administration for Children's Services and a senior fellow at the Columbia Justice Lab. 

Zachary Carter is with us, former New York City Corporation Counsel, former US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, chairman of the board of the Legal Aid Society. He's had some other titles too that are going to come into play here. Michael Jacobson is here. He is the executive director of the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance and a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center. He, more importantly, is the former commissioner of the City Department of Corrections and Probation. 

And Stanley Richards is here, deputy CEO of the Fortune Society. Until recently, he was the first deputy commissioner of the Department of Corrections and a former vice chair of the New York City Board of Correction. For those of you I have not-- I count each of them as friends. I'm glad that they're here to join me. For those of you I have not met, my name is Errol Louis. And I am the political anchor at Spectrum News New York 1, the local 24-hour news channel here. I also write a column for New York Magazine and have been talking about and reporting on these issues for a long, long time. 

Really glad to have all of you together. This will save me a little time, since I would have tried to hunt you down one at a time. And Gladys, I want to start with you, in part because, as the former commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services, they happen to handle juvenile detentions in New York City, so that the Chicago experience, in some ways, is almost directly on point. 

This is an almost forgotten chapter of New York recent government history. But the state Office of Children and Family Services during your tenure actually ordered an independent monitor to be put in place to review agency operations, make recommendations for improvements. It came and went so quickly that we in the news media, I think, barely noticed it. 

But I think, to the point, it was something-- my understanding is that you welcomed and helped shape and used it proactively to make sure that the monitor could, quote unquote, "order" you to do some things that perhaps, as administrator, you wanted to do all along. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience? 

Sure. It was a little different from appointing an administrator, as they did in Cook County. What was really interesting was that it was the Department of Justice. And the same fact pattern, the same conditions that existed in Cook County, existed in the New York State juvenile justice system. When I became commissioner, I inherited a totally dysfunctional system that was causing a lot of harm to young people in a very large, expensive system, and that was very resistant to change. 

I became the commissioner in 2007. And shortly thereafter, I received a letter from the Department of Justice, the United States Department of Justice, saying that they were going to launch an investigation in four of the facilities around the conditions of confinement, around alleged sexual misconduct, lack of mental health supports in four facilities. 

And I-- prior to receiving that letter, when we walked in, and I put my team together rather quickly, we had already diagnosed that those were the conditions. And we were going to do a major transformation. And we had the support at that time of the governor, who was Spitzer. And it was a year later, almost-- or more than a year later when there was a findings letter by the Department of Justice documenting in 37 pages the unconstitutional treatment, lack-- the violation of young people's constitutional rights because of the lack of services, the lack of mental health supports, the harm that was being caused to young people, the conditions within the facilities. 

They didn't find any sexual misconduct. But none of that was new. I knew all of that. We had spent time evaluating and assessing, and had launched already a reform agenda, and already announced that we were going to close facilities. And we actually launched the task force in September of 2008. And we really-- the question was, did this administrator receivership provide cover? It provided cover for us to be able to make the changes, the deep transformational changes we had to bring. 

And Michael was a partner, because at that time, he was getting Vera. And we brought in Vera to help us do the work. And so by the time that that finding letter was issued, the work was underway. And so we actually, with the attorney general's office, embraced it. I recommended to the governor not to challenge that. Nobody had been successful anyway in a lawsuit challenging a potential lawsuit from the Department of Justice-- and said, hey, let's embrace this. The system needs to change. We're doing it. 

And there was a transition. We then had Governor Paterson, who also embraced it. We launched the task force. The task force, in about a year, issued a blueprint for change. And that really served as the basis for negotiation with the Department of Justice. It was aligning it so that it worked for us as a tool to help us move the transformation much quicker than I would have been able to do without that kind of support. 

And the task force also rallied people, very important people. It was chaired by the president, then-president of John Jay, Jeremy Travis. And so there were people of gravitas, judges, young people that have been system involved, parents, attorneys for the defense. We had a wide range of people there who then became vested in making sure that this change happened. 

And so we did essentially what Cook was talking about in a much shorter period of time. And we got out of the consent decree. We also picked the monitors jointly. We were able to negotiate, and developed a very good working relationship, and used that consent decree really as one more tool to help shape and drive change. 

And so I didn't see it as adversarial. My general counsel was an equal partner with the attorney general's office-- with the, yeah, state attorney general's office in negotiating and shaping. And I think that there was credibility in the fact that we'd already launched and were very clear about change had to happen. And in four to five years, we were out. 

In fact, first three years, we were out in one facility. We were closing facilities. If you remember, Errol, it was very controversial. I closed over 12 facilities at the state while we were doing that. Unfortunately, the union was never a partner. But despite that, we had developed the support, capital to people understanding that change was important and that we could do it in New York. And we did do it. 

We reduced the footprint tremendously. Very few young people are being incarcerated at the state from New York City. I would say, often, we were exporting young people from New York City to really populate the state system. And so that led to other reforms close to home. We created the conditions for the changes moving forward and the next iteration of change. 

So lawsuits-- we had monitors that were appointed by the federal court. We did the selection and partnership. They guided us. We worked together. And it wasn't all roses. We had some bumps along the road. But we all had the same vision. It was a shared vision, same commitment to really reduce the harm, create more humane conditions, and reduce the number of young people coming into the system. So it worked for us. 

And Gladys, how much of this was, I guess, serendipity, politically speaking, meaning you were a relatively new administration when the Spitzer folks came in. And so you couldn't logically be blamed for any of the conditions that needed to be changed. Did that play a role in it? 

It sure did. I mean, it really gave us the space to say, this is what we found. We're not responsible for creating these conditions. They've existed a long time. There's resistance to change. But we're committed to change. And I have to say that I served under three governors. And they were all committed to the change. All of them, Cuomo, Paterson, and Spitzer, all embraced this and realized that it was untenable to continue to treat young people like that. 

So the fact that I came on board and announced immediately, almost immediately, that we were going to move forward to change, the fact that we had the governor support. We had champions in the legislature. And we leveraged all of that. We had tremendous community support, tremendous support from the advocates for partners, from the judges. It was a shared-- really, a shared vision and a shared effort. It certainly wasn't just myself and a team. And you have to learn how to share power in order to create better outcomes for young people. 

You mentioned that the unions were not partners, at least to your satisfaction. Did their contracts get superseded, suspended, set aside in any way? Or was this just a matter of them criticizing things that they couldn't stop? 

No, we didn't change any contract. It was a matter of them criticizing and trying to use their political leverage to really stop the changes we were making. And we required changes in job descriptions. We did a lot of really identifying what were the skill set that we wanted, just like Cook County described. And we did it through attrition. We did it closing facilities, bringing in experts. And the union attempted to stop those. But the governor supported us. And we were able to make the kinds of changes that were necessary. 

OK. Zach Carter, let me bring you into this. In addition to the other titles that I had mentioned, you've served as a magistrate judge in the federal system. You've been a criminal court judge. You've sort of seen this from every conceivable angle, including what the court will have to do in the event of a receivership, how they would supervise this entire process. What's your sense of whether or not New York would benefit from a receivership of the jail system? And what might be some of the challenges that you would be looking for if that were to happen? 

Sure. I think that in looking at how the monitorship has performed over the last several years, I think that it's hard not to come to the conclusion that Rikers would benefit from the appointment of a receiver, because only a receiver can suspend laws, and regulations, and contracts, including the collective bargaining agreement, that interfere with the implementation of the consent decree and in correcting the things that the court determined were in need of correction, particularly with respect to reducing violence at Rikers. 

That being said, the value of a receivership is sometimes focusing the mind of people who have been dragging their feet in the past, because the threat of imposing a monitor's power and of suspending things like the collective bargaining agreement could inspire sensible people to cooperate where they have not in the past, particularly union leadership. 

And as an important-- as potent as a receivership might be, it still cannot be viewed as a panacea, because if you look at the monitor's most recent report in March, I mean, he describes a level of dysfunction in multiple aspects of the operation of Rikers that cannot necessarily be solved overnight by even a potent receivership. 

I interviewed Zach, the president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, the main union there. He seemed confident that even in the event of a receivership, the basic collective bargaining agreement would not automatically be suspended. I guess I have-- my question is, how does that process work? And when control-- if somewhere down the road, there were a receivership, and control was returned to the city, does the collective bargaining agreement suddenly spring back to life? 

I think that to the extent that a receivership was actually established to be effective, and to the extent that the suspension of certain aspects of the collective bargaining agreement, particularly with respect to staffing issues-- to the extent those prove to be effective, I think it would behoove the city to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement that baked into it those suspensions that were ordained by the receiver during the pendency of the receivership. 

Can they order the city to do that or to attempt that? Would there be litigation if the union did not agree to that? 

I think that the receiver would have the authority to suspend whatever provisions of the collective bargaining agreement interfered with compliance with the requirements of the consent decree. And it wouldn't require any further court action. I mean, one of the disadvantages of the monitorship is that the monitor has to run to the court every time there's an act of noncompliance, of intentional noncompliance, whereas the receiver holds those powers personally. 

Got it. Got it. 

Now, can the union sue? I mean, anybody can sue. I mean, I think it's likely they would be unsuccessful. But lawsuits sometimes buy time and can be obstructionist in and of themselves. So it could present an issue, but not an insurmountable issue. 

On that question of time, how might a receivership be structured, if it's inevitable, say, for the New York City Department of Corrections? How should it be structured, do you think, to avoid it continuing indefinitely, or more than a decade, and on and on? 

Well, for the-- I guess first and foremost for me, if the receivership is actually going to set up the city for long-term success, then the goal of the receiver should be that after a period of time of Rikers performing the way it should under the receivership, that there should be a transition to the city running the facility at the same level of quality that hopefully it operated under the receivership. 

And so in order to prepare Rikers to function independently, it seems to me that you'd want to preserve in the current commissioner the authority, the ultimate authority to actually run the institution, with the receiver being an effective backstop. I mean, frankly, for me, the receiver frankly succeeds more to the role of the mayor than the role of the commissioner, because obviously, it-- there probably has not been a mayor in the modern history of the Department of Corrections that has provided the kind of support that a commissioner needs when they're in a confrontation with the union. 

This is a union town. And that's mostly, I would say, for the good. I mean, I've represented unions. I'm all for having organized labor so that you can improve the quality of life of workers. But in a municipal union, sometimes that zeal to improve quality of life can ignore that there's a duty to the public to run the facility in a humane, and constitutional, and lawful way, and that sometimes there needs to be a countervailing force. 

And ordinarily, you would hope that countervailing force would be a mayor that, in appropriate circumstances, would tell the union, this commissioner is my guy or woman. And he or she is the last word on policy issues regarding the Department of Corrections. And lose my telephone number. Work out whatever the issue that you have with the commissioner with the commissioner. 

And the receiver can step into that role, and to the extent that the union is not cooperative, can suspend whatever parts of the labor-- the collective bargaining agreement that cripple the commissioner's ability to manage his or her staff. 

OK. Let me bring Michael Jacobson into this. I remember you telling me once, Michael, that when you were correction commissioner-- and I think it was true for your successor. I interviewed them as well. You said, you didn't expect to hear from the mayor. You didn't want to hear from the mayor. You didn't want to hear from the deputy mayor. And if you did, it was only because there was a problem. 

So in light of that, we've long since passed that point. But how, if this is inevitable, or certainly an active question, how do we get through this? I mean, I know you've done some analysis of your own of what the staffing issues are and what are the technical requirements of trying to get the institution back on track. Do we need a receiver to step in and to do what most mayors politically have either been reluctant to do or politically unable to do? 

Yeah. I mean, my own sense is I think we do. And it's not just that mayors are reluctant. I mean, I was sort of-- as an essentially lifelong government person, I'm also reluctant to say that the city should invite in a receiver. I believe in home rule. That's how I've operated my whole life. So I totally understand the reluctance, politically and substantively. 

I just think, in this case-- I mean, at least for me, the reason I sort of-- there were a couple of reasons I sort of came to this. One is, if you step back and look at some sort of historical context, as you mentioned, when I got to corrections in '96, that was the pinnacle of the system for violence. It was just an incredibly violent system, much more than in the following two-- excuse me-- 2 and 1/2 decades, although not true anymore. 

I think the week I became the commissioner, the cover story on-- the cover page of New York Magazine was "Rikers Ready to Blow." I mean, it was just-- it was an incredibly overcrowded, back then, violent system. And if you look at the last 25 years, from '96 to '98 or '99, the violence actually hugely decreased by about 80% over that three-year period. 

And then, for a significant period-- I'm just looking at the stats here. From fiscal '02 to fiscal '10, so for almost a decade-- the violence in '96 was at a rate of 59 stabbings and slashings per 1,000. And stabbings and slashings are the sort of bellwether measure of violence for any incarcerated institution. So it went from 59 per 1,000, and for years and years, it was down to between 2 and 3 per 1,000. 

And then starting in about 2010 or 2011, it started this slow but inexorable increase back up to where now, in the last year, violence, the stabbings and slashings per 1,000, is actually significantly higher than in '96. I mean, that was unthinkable, right? It was 59 per 1,000 back then. And it went from, as I said, 2 and 3, then up to 10, then to 20, to 50. And for the last year, it's been closer to 80, right? 

So partly, it's just this over a decade of going the wrong way, not just in violence, staffing, all the things that are well known. So that's one, right? This is not something that's happened overnight, right? This is not a knock against the mayor or the-- Commissioner Molino seems like a sharp, intelligent guy who obviously wrote, I think, a good plan to submit to the court. 

But it's a structural issue, because not only do you have to fix all the things we're talking about, the extreme levels of violence, the conditions, the sanitary conditions, the medical conditions, all the metrics that we all know, but the other thing that's going on in the backdrop is two other things have to happen over the next few years. All those numbers have to come down and get reversed. 

But also, the current city plan is we're closing Rikers in five or six years and moving into these smaller jails. So in order for that to happen, one is the current population has to be cut roughly in half. But two, by the time you move into those facilities, you have to move in with a completely different workforce than you have now, right? 

When Stanley and I were both on the Litman Commission that recommended closing, and when we thought about the future, we wanted these smaller, much smaller places that house fewer incarcerated people, but have a system based on human dignity, right? And in order to do that, that involves huge recruitment issues, training issues, rethinking what the role of correctional officers are. 

What do they do? What are their requirements? The best systems in the world train their folks for two years before they ever get into an incarcerated facility. We have to get there, right? So in addition to talking about all the present issues, which are huge-- and I think Zach mentioned the March report by the monitor, which was, I mean, just brutal in its imagery of what the place is like. 

So it's not only that you have to fix that, but you have to reimagine what corrections is going to look like in New York City. And we can't walk into those new facilities with the same organizational mindset that we have now. And that alone is just a huge amount of tough, ongoing culture change, organizational change work. 

So when you look at both, to me, the sort of history, the recent disturbing trends, the population levels having to go down, redoing, essentially, the staff, and discipline, and supervisory nature of the place, to me, the structure of a receiver just makes sense. 

And the last thing I'll say on this is-- I mean everyone says, obviously, this is going to take years. But the average lifespan for a commissioner is probably two to three years. And this is going to take well beyond two to three years. You have to have some continuity. You have to have someone who knows what they're doing, who has some political juice, who has the ability to work with government and the unions. So it's just hard to get around thinking that that is not the way to go, given everything that has to be done over the next seven or eight years here. 

You know, Michael, I don't remember seeing, certainly not in the last report from the federal monitor, any even indirect reference to the plan, which was approved by the city council and is the operating sort of a future of corrections to close Rikers Island and replace it with those borough-based facilities you referenced. 

Could this be an opportunity to-- I mean, we'll ask Zach whether or not it's legally feasible. But could this be an opportunity to maybe enshrine some of those principles and move them forward in the context of a receivership? 

Well, I'm assuming, maybe naively-- I'm assuming that's the direction we're going in, right? The process continues, right? The designs are out. These places are starting to get built. So I'm assuming, one way or another, that's going to happen. As you say, you may increase the likelihood of it happening with a receiver. But I'm assuming, either way, receiver or no receiver, that is the direction the city is going. The money has been allocated. The plans have been made. 

But as I said before, that can't happen until a number of other things happen, and not the least of which is getting your population down significantly. And one more piece about that, and Jeremy Travis and Mike Rampell just wrote an editorial in the Daily News about this. When you look at Rikers, and Stanley knows this incredibly well, having just been there, a third of the people at Rikers are now there for a year or more. And a third of them are there for two years or more. And hundreds of them are there for three years or more. 

I mean, that is just outrageous at so many levels. It's an abrogation of a fundamental principle of the American justice system, which is the speedy disposition of justice. It's being treated like a prison now, not a jail. People should only be there until their cases are disposed. And no case, no case, I don't care what the case is, should ever take three years or two years to dispose. 

And the reason that's so important is that is how you start thinking about getting the population down, because no one should be there for that amount of time. But two, there's a direct relationship with people being in that place for one year, two years, three years, and levels of violence. You can't keep folks in a system like that for two years and three years and not expect to have huge levels of violence. 

So it's all of a piece, right? It's not just that it's related to closing Rikers, as you said. It's related to the fundamental conditions of Rikers. But I'm assuming that that is going to happen. And the city needs to do whatever it has to do to get that done. 

OK. Let me bring Stanley into this. You have the perspective of somebody who, as first deputy, was running the place. On the board of correction, you were a monitor of the place. And long ago in the past, you were actually incarcerated at Rikers as well. So you've seen this from lots of different sides. What is your sense of whether or not-- well, what would you say to a receivership? If you were still there, and they said, hey, we're going to have an outside federal receivership come in, based on what you heard about Chicago in particular, what would you want that person to take into account? What good could they do, do you think? 

Well, I think Chicago really laid it out, right? There are institutional barriers that really prevent the transformation, the cultural transformation and the operational transformation, of the New York City Department of Corrections. And I think our starting point is that this isn't about a failure of leadership on Commissioner Molina or failure of leadership from the mayor. This isn't a problem that they created. 

But we have institutional barriers that prevent the safe and humane operation of Rikers. And here's where we're at. We have a runway right now to fix and fundamentally change the kinds of barriers that are in the way right now before we get to the borough-based jails, because here's what none of us want. We don't want five borough-based Rikers Islands. And if we don't do the fundamental changes that we need to do, that's what we'll have. 

And here's what I mean by the fundamental changes. Some of the directives-- the Department of Corrections has over 200 directives that sort of lay out the operating principle about how officers should operate and how the department should operate. Some of those directives go back to 1996 that have not been reviewed and updated. 

And so when we talk about fundamentally changing and what a receiver can do, and this is what Teresa talked about, about changing some of the rules around collective bargaining, around changing some of the rules about job descriptions and the way that officers do the work, about recruiting people who are really appropriate for it, about assigning posts not based on seniority, but based on skill, and competency, and passion. And that's the kind of change that we need to do. 

So whether receivership is the fastest vehicle to do it-- and I'm saying fast, not in terms of it's going to happen in the year. We've heard it took seven years in Chicago, in Cook County. What I'm saying is that the fastest way to overcome the barriers, the procurement barriers, the hiring barriers, the operating barriers, we need to fundamentally change it. And the time to do that is right now. Lives are at stake, both officers and incarcerated people. 

And Stanley, when it comes to staffing issues, a lot has been made about people having to work triples, and posts not being manned, and so forth. But there's this other issue. It only comes up once in a while. And we don't usually focus on it, at least not in the media, which is the ability to hire from outside the system. My understanding is that up to a surprisingly senior level, you have to choose from within the department, which, among other things, enshrines the existing culture so that it makes it harder to change it. What would you alter there? 

I think I would alter-- and we've seen bits of this in the plan that Melina put in. So his plan, what he's saying he's going to do is hire these senior commissioners to oversee operations, administration, custody management. Those operations are usually handled on the uniformed side. And the uniformed side is where you need to come up through the ranks in order to be in those roles. 

The other thing he's doing is that he's going to have wardens report directly to him. That is a significant change, right? Wardens normally report to the chief of the department. So he's making some changes. But here's where the receiver-- he's making changes that will allow the structure and to begin to do some of the things that he wants to do. But the receiver could fundamentally change-- like, right now, you need to be ADW and-- Assistant Deputy Warden. And you need to have three of the operational experiences in order to be a warden. 

So you need to be an ADW of administration. You need to be an ADW of operations. You need to be an ADW of security before you can become deputy warden and a warden. So the receiver could fundamentally change those kinds of things and bring somebody in from the outside that's not coming up through the ranks to be able to take on those jobs. And this is the opportunity for us to do that. It really is. 

Well, you know, it's interesting. The very premise of a receiver is that you don't necessarily have to have come up through the ranks in order to run the entire system, right? So the logic of the existing system is challenged by the mere appointment of a receiver. And Zach, let me ask you this. If there were sort of changes being suggested or negotiated at the start of a receivership that were intended to help further this larger planning mission of shutting down the central jail and replacing it with borough-based facilities, clearly, the court would have to approve it. 

Does that go beyond what a receiver normally-- in other words, are receiverships narrowly tailored to address a specific harm? Or could some of these larger goals explicitly be put into the conditions of the receivership? 

Well, I think the larger goals can fit within a receivership, because the-- I mean, the defendant in the underlying lawsuit is not Rikers Island. The defendant is the New York City Department of Corrections and affects inmates under the control of the Department of Corrections, wherever they are situated. 

So an explicit reference to the plan to close Rikers might be helpful, because it would require the receiver and the court, and frankly, all the parties to think about what it means to reform a physical facility that everybody knows is proposed for closing in a relatively short period of time. 

I mean, one of the challenges for the commissioner, even with the assistance of a receiver, is how do you motivate a staff to improve or even maintain facilities that are destined for closure? And so there has to be a lot of thought in the plan about how you accomplish that, how you improve the physical plant in a way that is sufficient to make it a humane and habitable facility, but understanding that the facility itself is temporary. 

But getting to the point that Stanley made so well a few minutes ago, a lot of what would have to be in that plan of transition is trying to change a culture in a way that you don't transfer Rikers to five separate facilities in the boroughs. I mean, ironically, I think that-- I used to think about this, frankly, when I was a corporation counsel toward the end and was more hopeful than I am now in terms of quick, systemic changes. 

I mean, the ideal really should be to upgrade the operation of Rikers sufficiently, so that five years from now, people would be scratching their heads and saying, remind me again of why we're closing this place. 

Mm, mm, yeah. Well, an interesting metric, a very hopeful one. And so Gladys, back when the question was posed for OCFS, did it come from the political side? Or was it you on the commission? Or was it the commissioners and the staff side who went to the political people and said, hey, we've got an opportunity here. Let's embrace the receivership. You're muted. 

Sorry. We didn't have a receivership. We had the consent decree. 

I'm sorry, consent decree, yes. 

Consent decree. So interesting enough, there was a convergence. I remember coming in and having a meeting almost immediately, because when you start, everybody wants to meet with you, with the advocates threatening lawsuits and threatening action. And I remember a legislator reaching out to me to say, you've inherited a terrible agency, right? And so I think-- and I, when I did my assessment quickly, came to the same conclusion. 

So I think that there was enough knowledge, and passion, and concern about what was happening. A young person had died a year before the transition to a new administration. So there was this interest in some type of change. I don't think anybody envisioned the transformation that it was going to be-- we were undoing, really, and blowing up a system that just was totally dysfunction and was a source of tremendous harm. 

I don't think anybody envisioned that. But certainly, everybody-- there was enough legislative support, particularly on the Democratic side, certainly from the governor, and certainly from the community and the judges to say, we've got to do something different. This is not working. 

And you said earlier on that the advocates were a key source of support. Did that take convincing, or did they sort of see the same possibilities that you saw right away? 

No, they didn't need any convincing. I think that it helps a lot that I came from the advocacy community, right? So that there was an alignment. And I knew lots of people. And I want to make one correction. My staff weighed in and sent me a little note saying that we closed 21 facilities, not 12. So I wanted to correct that. 

Good for you. Good for you. So it can be done. Michael, the political stars may be lining up here. It's a new administration. They can't plausibly claim to have caused, in the first 100 days or whatever we're up to, 150 days, conditions that have been building for decades. But there's a resistance. And it strikes me as similar to what you described as your initial reluctance to surrender power to somebody else, right? Like, the whole point of local government is to run local government. What would you say to your successor and to the current mayor about that and why they might want to rethink that? 

Yeah. Well, and I totally get the resistance at every level, even emotionally. And especially in this case, he's a new mayor, a new commissioner. As Stanley said, they didn't create this problem. They completely inherited it. I completely get the sense that-- give us a chance to fix it. And first of all, they're going to have a chance in any case, because there's no road to a receiver coming in a week. I mean, this is a process, right? So obviously, they're going to have an opportunity to do some stuff. 

But if you can step back and you're just thinking about, not just that incarcerated folks who are in these facilities, but the people who work there. The advantages of a receiver to me-- not politically-- I'm not I'm not a pol. other people can weigh in on the politics of this. But substantively, just weighs on the side of having a receiver. 

And again, I say that. And a number of people have said it. It's not a panacea. You certainly need the right person. I mean, a receiver him or herself has a huge amount of power and authority. You have to pick the right person. And I said, it doesn't have to be a correctional expert. But it has to be someone who can change big systems, who can work with the city council, the mayor, the unions. So that's a hard thing to get. But you have to get it. 

But I think in the end, when you weigh-- when you look at the history, when you look at the last 10 or 15 years in comparison to the past 30 years, when you look at all the problems we have, and when you look at, as a number of people have said, us moving into these facilities in a few years with a completely different staff, with a different organizational mindset, that is just-- to me, it's the path that can help you get there more than just, let us try this. 

I completely understand that response. But if you're just looking at all the structural factors, and where we have to go, and the decisions that have to be made, it's hard to weigh in against that. And I mean, obviously, the unions will be against this. You know, the ironic thing is that the biggest labor issue for the officers and the staff is the conditions, is violence. That's their labor issue. 

I mean, I'm sure they all want more money and benefits. But really, their issue is conditions. And I think it's in their self-interest to go down a path where the conditions can improve as quickly as possible, because they have very hard jobs or complicated jobs. And the city has a responsibility to make sure they're-- not just that they're safe, but they have meaningful, dignified jobs. And to me, this is the path to get there. So I think it actually meets what's in their institutional and personal self-interest as well. 

OK. That brings us to the end of our time. I really want to thank all of the panelists for a great discussion. And I can't wait to see what Vital City does with this. I hope you're going to archive it and make sure we can go back and review some of these words of wisdom and help educate the rest of the city about some of the issues we discussed here today. Let me send it back to you, Liz. 

Great. Thank you so much, Errol. And thank you to both of our amazing panels and our speakers. It's really been incredibly informative at a crucial time for us. I'm just going to do a really quick kind of cliff notes wrap-up. I think the one thing that really became clear is we know that this receivership is an awesome power, one to be used sparingly and as a last resort. And the question is, is that where we are now with Rikers, with violence spiking to rates that we haven't seen in decades, as Michael pointed out, seven to eight times compared to a sister city, Los Angeles? 

As the monitor has pointed out, a third of the workforce is out. Even before the monitor came in, conditions had been appalling for decades, appalling to the degree that violates the Constitution and shocks the conscience. We've had five consent decrees over eight mayors and 24 commissioners. We've had increasing budgets this year at $1.25 billion. And the latest monitor, a person of wide experience and reputation, with a world-class team, has spent the last six years and thousands of pages detailing what needs to be done. And even he is very cautious about what is doable under the current structures. 

And so with all the goodwill and money in the world, these shocks to just basic humanity have not been fixed. Why? I think that there is something to this issue, that structurally, something is just broken. Michael mentioned this. Vinnie mentioned it. Almost every panelist did. Vinnie sort of outlined the list, and this panel has too, union rules that forbid hiring from outside, even when there are big holes in management, the problem of procurement, taking years to order even locking doors. 

And all of this is happening at a time when correctional practice, in theory, is shifting. And the plan shifts with every new commissioner, again, as Michael said, one every two to three years, and every new mayor. And so is it possible that the city alone with its own powers could make these-- the kinds of seismic changes that need to be made? 

There is law and there's lore that seem to present obstacles. Does the city have the power over either of those? How do we know when there is progress, in according to whom? Here's one quick example. On the very same day that the monitor, a couple of days ago, heralded improvements, an increase in the number of people who are getting to their medical appointments-- on that very day, another court held the department in contempt for failing to get people to their medical appointments. 

So how do we know what the facts on the ground are to make these judgments? When is there progress? And does the city have the right plan? And maybe most importantly, to the point that this panel, and the last panel, and Sara Norman also made, who drives it to the end and to its goals without fear or favor? 

So it's a gamble whether the city has the power, whether this commissioner or this mayor will be around long enough to lead and sustain what has to be, as Gladys has pointed out, really a very strong vision of what the future should be, whether they can build a team in consensus without being buffeted by the daily challenge of politics, both big-P Politics and small-p politics. 

At the end of the day, this is going to be the judge's call. And it will require the most difficult of judgments, first, just understanding what the obstacles to change are now and over the past 40 years, and then piercing the data, if there is data, to understand what changes are actually happening and to what degree the city alone can continue to drive. 

So to me, we seem to be in a kind of boiling the frog moment. The water's been boiling for a long time. And it's time to address it with a different kind of power that has a different kind of durability and a different allegiance than our current structure has. Otherwise, we all know what happens to the frog. 

So I just wanted to thank everybody. Really, it's such an important issue, such great insights, such amazing knowledge in what is an incredibly difficult issue confronting the city. We have more information and background briefers on the Columbia Justice Lab site and on the Vital City site. We will email everybody who signed up that information. 

There have also been some questions that have come in that, as Vinnie said at the beginning, we will answer and post the answers on the website. And we'll be in touch as soon as we have a recording of this. We've also make sure that everybody who signed up and anybody else who would like to go to either the Columbia Justice Lab site or the Vital City site can see. So thank you, everybody, so much for your time. Really appreciate it. And have a good day. 

Thank you. 

Thank you, Liz, and everybody. 

Thank you, Liz. 

Great to see you all on Zoom. 

Thank you very much, Liz. 

Thanks, Liz.