REMARKS
Council Member Sandy Nurse Opens Fiscal 2025 Preliminary Budget Hearing on Criminal Justice
0:00:38
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9 min
Council Member Sandy Nurse chairs the Fiscal 2025 preliminary budget hearing on criminal justice, focusing on budget proposals and their alignment with closing Rikers Island.
- Nurse welcomes participants, including criminal justice committee members, Commissioner Winnell McGinley Liddy, and others to the hearing.
- She expresses her concerns over mayor’s budget proposals for three agencies, emphasizing the need for stability, support for reentry, and fulfillment of legal obligations to close Rikers Island.
- Nurse highlights issues such as funding cuts to diversion and reentry programs, projecting an increase in jail population, and concerns regarding the fair deployment of Department of Correction staff.
- She calls for the proper expansion of alternatives to incarceration and addresses the necessity for transparency and efficiency in the administration's handling of Rikers Island.
- Nurse concludes by thanking various members of her team, the committee, and acknowledging the critical role of task forces and working groups in addressing the city’s criminal justice challenges.
Sandy Nurse
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Good morning, everyone.
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Welcome to the 5th School 2025 preliminary budget hearing for the committee on criminal justice.
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Thank you to criminal justice committee members for being here.
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I know online we have Council member Tiffany Keban and deputy speaker Diana Ayala.
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Congratulations to Commissioner Winnell McGinley Liddy.
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Welcome to your 1st criminal justice committee hearing as commissioner.
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I'm also excited be cheering this committee for the first time.
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Great to see you commissioner Juanita Holmes, Jasmine, Georgia's Yila, and additional leadership who have joined us today.
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Today, I'm looking to gain insight into how the mayor's budget proposals for these 3 agencies align with the goals of creating stability on the island, getting people the support they need, ensuring people have a plan to success fully reenter our communities and working towards the legal obligation to close Rykers.
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In the fiscal 2025 preliminary plan, these 3 agencies have a combined total budget of 1,150,000,000, which supports just under 10,000 budgeted positions.
0:01:49
The plan includes minimal changes, but today I would like to dig into a few areas of discussion and concern.
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First, given the daily risk of harm, injury, or death at Rykers, we should be doubling down on programs that divert people from the island.
0:02:07
Expanding alternatives to incarceration is a commitment in the plan to close Rykers.
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However, this budget degree releases funding to these programs.
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In the last fiscal year, the mayor proposed a 13,000,000 cut to the supervised release program even though the administration testified last year that its caseload was growing exponentially.
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The admin is proposing to cut 8,000,000 to reentry programs despite all evidence that they reduce recidivism.
0:02:36
In addition to these proposed cuts, I think we can all acknowledge that the decision to abruptly cut 17,000,000 in funding to trusted credible organizations that provided ATI And Rantry Services was a mistake.
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These programs are proven models that set people up for healing and transformation.
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This disruption was costly in terms of time lost for individuals on rikers who were making progress and then were abandoned.
0:03:06
But also to the organizations who lost talented staff.
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The DOC's decision to reverse this cut rather quickly affirms that this was a poor choice.
0:03:17
We welcome the course correction of restoring 14,000,000 of these funds for programs and the forthcoming RFP for organizations to apply However, this does not fully restore the peg.
0:03:29
The failure to expand ATI programs leads to my other concern which is the projected jail population increased to 7000 people by 2027.
0:03:39
Not only is the administration failing to fully utilize the program jams for diverting people from and getting people off rikers, but it has used this projected increase to justify increasing the number of beds in the Burrow based jail plan.
0:03:53
The admin was able to add beds by reducing the number of therapeutic housing units even though 53% of the jail population is diagnosed with mental illness and 40% with addiction struggles.
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More concerning is the increase in beds for the planned women's facility.
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We know many cis women, self identifying women, and gender expansive individuals often end up in jail for surviving intimate partner violence and gender based violence.
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The city is failing, falling short of its commitments to alternative supportive housing where women can safely heal and get the support they need.
0:04:30
I also wanna dig into DOC staff operations and deployment.
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Reports from the federal monitor and the board of corrections show the ongoing disregard for protocols when deploying staff.
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We see protocol not being followed when de escalating and using chemical agents, reports state that routine tours occur less frequently than protocol prescribes.
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While visiting Rykers, I spoke with many detainees who were not getting to their medical and court appointments on time.
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Transportation to court is not the only challenge.
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Once people are at court, there are extensive delays bringing people from the pen to before a judge with individuals staying in the pens until 7, 8 o'clock at night.
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While we certainly have heard the arguments that DOC vacancies are increasing through attrition and recruitment challenges, Rikers has the highest ratio of of officers to detainees in the country.
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Uniform headcount redemptions should be consistent with reducing the jail population, which we are required to do to close Rykers.
0:05:32
So I'm hoping to get an update on how many of the officers reported as chronically absent in 2019 have returned to work or been terminated.
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Reports also described that not enough office servers are deployed to jail posts.
0:05:47
We have many people working at Rykers, but not where the highest need is to ensure the safety of other staff and detainees.
0:05:55
Failure to properly deploy staff to critical posts and ensure consistent tours has directly resulted in fatalities such as the case with Eric Tavira, and Gilberto Garcia.
0:06:07
So I'd like an update on how DOC incentivizes and trains officers to work in jail housing units.
0:06:14
There has been recent reporting that DOC is failing to meet minimum standards of care, such that detainees are reportedly washing their clothes and toilets, were showering with their clothes on to clean them.
0:06:26
I personally have seen unsanitary conditions in housing units such as piles of trash, and other issues such as lack of air conditioning or heat or issues with the commissary.
0:06:36
With such conditions in the jails, the board of corrections must have the resources required to provide oversight.
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The budget proposal reduces their staff positions, and cut cuts BOC's budget by nearly 18%.
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While Commissioner Xi testified that this cut is because of vacant positions, it's important to note that these posts are particularly hard to fill, and the opportunity to recruit and retain staff for the board must remain available given the humanitarian crisis on the island.
0:07:08
Another concern is that the administration has failed to comply with the Renewable Rikers Act and transfer land over from DOC to DCAS.
0:07:16
And I know that DOC cannot fully speak to this, but JOTC has been closed for 20 years.
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AMKC is now closed except for the industrial kitchen.
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From my tour last summer, vacant land is abundant.
0:07:30
There seems to be no rationale for why the admin chooses to be noncompliant with the law.
0:07:35
We would love to hear about any conversations DOC has participated in regarding this.
0:07:42
Lastly, we'll not spend much time on this, but I would like at some point an update on the litany of task force, working groups, and commissions that exist by law or executive order.
0:07:52
It would be great to get updated rosters, get a list of which ones are incomplete, a breakdown on which of these met, and what outcomes there were.
0:08:01
I don't normally go this long into remarks, but I just outline all of these concerns because as I step into chairing this committee, it really feels like I'm stepping into a big mess, and it's really not clear if the mayor is committed to getting us out of it, and this budget proposal certainly does not reflect a commitment to that goal.
0:08:21
At the end of the day, as our speaker often says, no one should ever come out of city care worse off than when they arrived.
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We have a legal and moral obligation to close riders.
0:08:31
And that obligation requires this administration to be laser focused on keeping and getting people off that island and then demolishing those jails.
0:08:41
That said, I wanna thank the commissioners for joining today.
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I also wanna thank you both for making time last week where we were able to introduce ourselves.
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I really enjoyed learning more about the 2 of you, how you got to this work, your approach, and what drives you.
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And I hope that as we engage this year, we can have productive and forthright conversations I wanna work with you to identify roadblocks and challenges and the resources needed to get people off the island and safely back home.
0:09:11
I wanna thank speaker Adams for appointing me and trusting me to chair this committee.
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I know that Rikers is a personal issue to her.
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And that closing those jails for good is a top priority.
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I also want to thank our committee staff whom I have had the pleasure of working with for the first time for their hard work.
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Financial analyst, Casey Lyski, counsel Jeremy Whiteman, legislative policy analyst, Natalie Melter.
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I'm truly humbled by your knowledge and expertise.
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And thank you to my chief of staff, Saint Maury Turray, and legislative director, Anal Hernandez.
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I'd like to also recognize my colleagues who are joining us today Council member Mercedes, nurses.
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I also wanna recognize our public advocate, Jumani Williams.
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And now I'm gonna pass it back to I'm going to pass it over to the public advocate if you want to say any remarks.