Ex-CIA Officer to Take Control of NYC Jails

New York City's long-troubled Rikers Island jail complex is getting a new boss, and it's not the mayor. A federal judge on Tuesday appointed Nicholas Deml, a former CIA officer and ex-head of Vermont's corrections system, to take operational control of Rikers, sidelining City Hall on major decisions, the New York Times reports. US District Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered Deml and the city to deliver a confidential management plan within 21 days.

The judge, who ordered the city to turn over control of the massive jail complex last year, said Deml, 38, will serve as a "remediation manager" who reports directly to the judge and is authorized to "take all actions necessary" to overhaul jails while working alongside the city's correction commissioner. The Queens Daily Eagle reports that Deml will have "the power to hire, train, promote, demote, transfer, investigate, evaluate, and fire" anybody working for the New York City Department of Correction except the commissioner, whose responsibilities he will largely assume.

The move follows years of federal oversight and scathing reports about violence and mismanagement at Rikers, where a court-appointed monitor recently said reforms were advancing at a "glacial pace." At least 48 people have died in city custody or shortly after release since 2022, according to city data. Detainees' attorneys called Deml's appointment "a historic step" toward addressing what they described as ongoing constitutional violations. The correction officers' union said it hopes Deml's prior corrections experience means he understands staff safety concerns.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who took office amid intensifying scrutiny of the jails, said he looks forward to working with Deml. Mamdani has extended a longstanding jail "state of emergency" while ordering a plan to comply with suspended rules within 45 days. He also faces a fast-approaching legal deadline: a 2019 law requires the city to shut Rikers by August 2027 and replace it with four smaller borough-based jails, a timeline widely seen as in jeopardy as costs have ballooned to an estimated $15.5 billion and the jail population has climbed back to about 7,000. That's more than four times the prison population in Vermont, where Deml was commissioner of the Department of Corrections from 2021 until August last year, the Daily Eagle notes.