NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — The executive director of the New York City Board of Correction, the oversight body tasked with monitoring the Department of Correction, plans to resign in protest after the agency abruptly limited access to video from city prisons.
Amanda Masters plans to step down from her position in March, City & State New York reported citing multiple anonymous sources.
DOC Commissioner Louis Molina announced new limits to when and where the BOC can access video from jails in mid-January.
The nine-member board is still able to review video from security, body and handheld cameras if they request to do so within business hours at a designated location, but they no longer have at-will access to footage and can’t monitor surveillance cameras live.
The BOC said the revocation is “at odds with the New York City Charter,” which guarantees the board access to “all books, records, documents, and papers of the Department for the evaluation of departmental performance.”
The change came after NY1 aired a story about a man who died on Rikers Island that featured body camera footage obtained via Freedom of Information Law request to the BOC.
Rikers Island has become notorious for a high death rate that has raised concerns about DOC negligence and conditions in New York City prisons.
Nineteen people died in DOC custody or shortly after being released in 2022 out of an average daily population of almost 6,000 prisoners.
That’s the highest death rate in New York City prisons in over a quarter century.
The Board of Correction is responsible for investigating the deaths, and the DOC’s revocation could delay probes as investigators are now forced to jump through hoops to review video.
The change could also create opportunities for video to be withheld without the BOC’s knowledge, as camera feeds can no longer be monitored live.
“Viewing real-time video footage from the jails allows BOC to immediately dispatch field staff to address situations like impending riots, to investigate deaths in custody, and to monitor the conditions in the jails.” said the Legal Aid Society, a non-profit that represents many incarcerated New Yorkers, in a statement. “The Mayor’s ham-fisted move serves no purpose except to hide the violence, chaos and mismanagement that pervades his jails and endangers our incarcerated clients every day."
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