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Council Member Amanda Farias opens budget hearing for criminal justice agencies
0:00:26
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3 min
Council Member Amanda Farias opens the fiscal year 2026 preliminary budget hearing for the committee on criminal justice, outlining key objectives and concerns regarding the Department of Correction, Board of Correction, and Department of Probation. She emphasizes the goal of closing Rikers Island, transitioning to borough-based jails, and implementing criminal justice reform policies.
- Farias highlights the combined budget of $1.3 billion for the three agencies and plans to discuss various changes and areas of concern.
- Key topics include expanding alternatives to incarceration, the status of borough-based jails, staff operations at Rikers, and the Board of Correction's oversight capacity.
- The council member also mentions the need to discuss the Department of Probation's organizational restructuring and programming optimization.
Amanda Farias
0:00:26
Good morning and welcome to the fiscal twenty twenty six preliminary budget hearing for the committee on criminal justice.
0:00:33
Thank you to the criminal justice committee members for being here.
0:00:36
I'd like to welcome commissioner Lynel Mangli Liddy, commissioner Juanita Holmes, Jasmine Georges Yella and additional leadership who have joined us here today.
0:00:46
My chair's objective for today's hearing is to discuss how the mayor's budget proposals for these three agencies provide the resources for the ultimate goal of closing Rikers and transitioning to the borough based jail system while focusing on holistic criminal justice reform policies and ensuring people have adequate diversion programming to reduce recidivism and keep people in their communities.
0:01:10
In the fiscal twenty twenty six preliminary plan these three agencies have a combined total budget of 1,300,000,000.0 which supports 9,914 budgeted positions.
0:01:20
The plan includes several changes including funding for newly budgeted positions, infrastructure repairs, and increased funding for food and uniforms for people in custody among others.
0:01:31
I intend to ask about all of these changes today in addition to some additional areas of concern.
0:01:36
First, in an effort to reduce the daily risk of harm, injury, or death at Rikers, we should we should be focused on programs that divert people from the island.
0:01:46
Expanding alternatives to incarceration as a primary step in reducing the population of detainees and furthering our commitment to close Rikers.
0:01:54
With contracts, funding estimates, and anticipated timelines in place, I look forward to discussing the status of the borough based jails plan.
0:02:03
In particular, I'd like to hear about the transfer of land parcels on the island to decafs making way for renewable Rikers.
0:02:12
More concerning is the possibility of ICE office operating on the island and I look forward to getting answers from DOC regarding this plan.
0:02:20
I also want to dig into DOC staff operations and deployment.
0:02:24
Numerous reports from oversight bodies have reported the constant disregard for protocols when deploying staff, particularly when de escalating and touring the facilities.
0:02:33
While visiting Rikers, chair nurse spoke with many detainees who were not getting to their medical and court appointments on time.
0:02:42
Challenges with DOC and attrition rates are nothing new.
0:02:45
In the preliminary plan the budgeted headcount remains significantly higher than the actual headcount with fourteen ninety eight vacancies as of January.
0:02:53
The rate of new uniform hires, staff hires has not outpaced the number of separations since the installation of the January '20 '18 officer class.
0:03:02
Despite such a high vacancy rate Rikers continues to have the highest ratio of officers to date detainees in the country.
0:03:09
I'm interested to hear DOC's plans to reduce headcount as the population of incarcerated persons lowers and the transition to borough based jails begins.
0:03:18
The Board of Corrections must have the resources to provide oversight charter mandated oversight of the jails and maintain minimum standards.
0:03:27
This plan reduces BOC's budget by nearly 4% and it is now more important than ever for the board to have the resources to be able to recruit and retain staff.
0:03:38
Lastly I want to spend some time working through the Department of Probations organizational restructuring and discussing the optimization of programming as well as how the department is supporting their staff through these changes.
0:03:50
I also want to thank our committee staff for their hard work, Counsel Jeremy Whitman, legislative policy analyst Natalie Metzler, the financial analyst Casey Laceke, apologies.
0:04:05
Thank you to chair nurses chief of staff Samori Torre and legislative director Ryan Hickey.