Correction officers routinely lock severely mentally ill men in their cells on Rikers Island for weeks and even months in violation of city regulations, according to the Daily News.
Justyna Rzewinski, a social worker who recently left a job at Rikers, said the practice called "deadlocking" in mental health units causes the detainees to decompensate – or lose their ability to function, the paper said.
Medical staff are prevented from giving them medication to stabilize their conditions, triggering behavior like relentless screaming, banging on cell doors and smearing their cells with their own feces, Rzewinski told the Daily News in an exclusive interview.
“That was a shock. I had never seen people live like this,” she said. “People living on the street looked better than these patients.”
Rzewinski’s account of life for the mentally ill on Rikers offers a startling first-hand insight into day-to-day operations in the special mental health units which make up a key part of what has become the city’s largest de facto psychiatric system.
More than half of those detained at Rikers have some sort of psychiatric disability, the paper said.
Rzewinski is slated to testify before the Board of Correction (DOC) on Tuesday, making her one of only a few jail medical staffers to go public about conditions inside, the paper reported.
Tina Luongo, chief attorney of the Criminal Defense Practice at The Legal Aid Society, said she was seething after reading the report.
"The cascades of horribles that plague our incarcerated clients, whether that’s DOC’s well-established inability to administer basic jail function, or the department’s complete indifference expressed towards the people in its care, one thing is absolute: the city cannot manage its jails safely and a federal receivership is necessary. While Rikers Island must be closed forever, the culture of abuse that pervades daily operations in our jails must end today," she said in a statement.
The organization said it is considering all litigation options to protect clients who have been subjected to this inhumane treatment.
"For anyone who still takes city officials at their word that DOC has ceased to employ solitary confinement, today’s troubling reporting should clear any confusion. The city continues to default to isolation instead of care, even in specialized units that claim to treat mental illness. Solitary is torture, and its continued use is both illegal and immoral," she said.
