New York City’s Department of Correction commissioner is changing hands amid heightened scrutiny of jail violence and health care, and the new leader is drawing on personal experience inside Rikers Island. Mayor Zohran Mamdani tapped Stanley Richards to oversee the city’s jails, making Richards the first formerly incarcerated person to hold the commissioner’s post, according to the Associated Press. Richards, 65, took office in February and has said he does not feel lingering anger about his own confinement at the complex.
In an early visit to the cell where he once served time for robbery, Richards reflected on the contrast between his past and his current responsibility. He described the small cell and surrounding graffiti-scrawled concrete, and told reporters, “It doesn’t give me bad feelings, you know,” adding that he “offended my community and committed a crime” and “paid my price for it.” Richards said, “The truth of my story is a story of redemption.”
His appointment places him at what the AP described as a critical juncture for New York’s beleaguered jail system. In January, a federal judge appointed Nicholas Deml as Rikers’ first “remediation manager,” a court-ordered role with broad authority aimed at bringing order after years of problems, including violence and questions about inmate health care. The AP reported that last year, 15 people died in Department of Correction custody, with almost all deaths attributed to medical problems, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.
The pace of closing Rikers is also a central challenge for Richards. A city law passed in 2019 requires closing all jail facilities on the 400-acre island by 2027, but Mamdani has acknowledged that deadline is out of reach. The mayor said it was “practically impossible to fulfill,” the AP reported, as the closure process has fallen behind schedule.
Richards has said his goals align with the federal overseer while he works toward the city’s broader reforms. Ben Heller, a program manager at Vera, called the appointment a “hugely powerful” message, saying Richards understands that “treating people with dignity is not at odds with keeping communities safe” and that “we cannot incarcerate our way to safety.” Heller also said Richards’ understanding reflects both “lived experience and professional expertise.” Richards, in turn, said his “goals are not different” from Deml’s: “We all want safe jails. We don’t want our officers attacked. We don’t want people in our care attacked.”
On the ground, the department has been taking steps intended to reduce reliance on aging structures while shifting inmates with medical needs to other facilities. Earlier this month, the department opened a jail unit within Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan that the AP reported will house more than 100 people with acute medical conditions and serious mental illness currently held at Rikers. Richards said the move will allow the department to shutter a Rikers building dating to the 1930s this June while ensuring inmates receive care. He also told reporters that the department is working with court officials and prosecutors to process cases more efficiently so people do not linger at Rikers awaiting trial, and to ensure those eligible for diversion programs are managed in the community rather than in jail.
Richards said the department is also working to address jailhouse violence, including by tackling staffing shortages. He said the plan includes filling some 1,300 staff vacancies that have contributed to long hours, unsafe conditions, and rising overtime costs. The AP reported that the department employs more than 7,400 people, including more than 5,700 uniformed officers. Correctional officers’ union president Benny Boscio did not respond to messages from the AP, but he has previously said he hopes Richards “demonstrates a commitment to putting safety and security before any political ideology.”
For Richards, rehabilitation programming and limits on certain practices are part of the same effort to change conditions for people behind bars. He said he intends to launch new jailhouse programs to help inmates better prepare for life outside jail, and he is committed to abiding by a city law restricting solitary confinement—an approach the AP said his predecessor, Eric Adams, had opposed. Adams previously resisted closing Rikers, saying he would rather rehabilitate the facility and dismissed plans for smaller jails as “flawed,” the AP reported.
As Richards settles into the role, he is also inheriting Rikers as the largest portion of New York’s jail population. Department data cited by the AP said Rikers houses the vast majority of the roughly 6,700 people currently locked up in the city’s jail system. That figure is up from around 3,900 in 2020 but far below the roughly 20,000 people in custody in the early 1990s. The AP also reported that Deml, who previously led Vermont’s corrections department, and an Adams spokesperson did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Richards’ stated personal narrative—moving from incarceration to leadership—is central to how he frames the work ahead. Standing by the cell he once occupied, he emphasized accountability and what he described as a redemptive path, telling reporters, “For me, we are gonna walk in the light. We’re gonna lift this place up,” and that his administration will also “lift the people who work here” and “lift people who are sent to us for care.”