NYC correction officers routinely lock severely mentally ill men in their cells on Rikers Island for weeks and even months in violation of city regulations, a social worker who left a job in the system three weeks ago tells the Daily News. The practice – known in DOC slang as “deadlocking” – in jail mental health units causes the detainees to decompensate – or lose their ability to function, the social worker, Justyna Rzewinski, told The News in an exclusive interview. Medical staff, she said, 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. Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily NewsSocial worker Justyna Rzewinski. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News) “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. On Tuesday, she is slated to testify before the Board of Correction, making her one of only a few jail medical staffers to go public about conditions inside. “We are obligated to report and speak about any injustice we see, especially for those without a voice,” she said, noting her mother urged her to share her experiences. “I felt like I was leaving my patients behind. I promised myself I would keep fighting for them.” Chris Boyle, a supervising attorney with New York County Defender Services, and Natalie Fiorenzo, a senior corrections specialist, said Rzewinski’s account sheds light on things the public defender group had heard only anecdotally. “Some clients reported some of this, but we had no proof – for example if DOC said they ‘refused’ to come to court, but our client insisted they were actually locked in,” Boyle said. “By her coming forward, we now have proof.” Boyle said he met last week with five men housed in the same units where Rzewinski worked, and they also confirmed the existence of “deadlocking.’ “They were so remarkably consistent about it,” said Boyle, the group’s director of data research and policy. Many of the men Rzewinski worked with had been found not mentally fit for trial and were waiting for treatment at a state facility like Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Randalls Island. But a shortage of beds delayed their transfer, and so they remained at Rikers. “A lot of patients are on the list for a really long time,” she said. “It’s usually the low-functioning patients who get it the worst because they often have no outside support.” City policy A practice of arbitrary lock-ins of seriously mentally ill detainees as punishment would violate a series of city regulations. The city’s minimum standards include explicit restrictions on confining mentally ill detainees. Additional limitations on solitary confinement were included in a City Council bill passed earlier this year, though Mayor Adams has suspended parts of that legislation. “Restraints or seclusion shall not be used as punishment, for the convenience of staff, or as a substitute for treatment programs,” the standards state. Medication cannot be withheld or delayed. And correction officers must document every event that occurs in a housing unit. “This is not a few isolated instances of abuse performed by some rogue officers,” said Stan German, executive director of New York County Defender Services. “What Ms. Rzewinski describes – and NYCDS has confirmed – is a pattern and practice of organized cruelty, systematically and secretly inflicted upon the mentally ill for many months and likely years. The depth of the depravity is astonishing.” germanBarry Williams/for New York Daily NewsStan German, executive director of New York County Defender Services. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News) Rzewinski also alleges that DOC doesn’t keep records of these lock-ins. The men on “deadlock” are only denoted by a small white tag placed next to the buttons in the security booth that operate each cell door. “This was totally unethical and inhumane,” she said. “It happens in every MO unit and PACE unit on Rikers Island. We know that from our staff meetings. My co-workers and I talked about that a lot.” In jail shorthand, MO means “mental observation” and PACE is an acronym for “Program to Accelerate Clinical Effectiveness.” Rzewinski, 39, divided her time in two of those units which held about 88 men at the George R. Vierno Center on Rikers from Dec. 4, 2023, to Sept. 20 – just under 10 months – before she left in frustration. Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography OfficeMayor Eric Adams and Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie. (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office) Mayor Adams and his correction commissioner, Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, have insisted there is no solitary confinement at Rikers. “Solitary confinement does not exist and has not existed since 2019,” Maginley-Liddie told NY1 on Jan 21. “We have people with serious mental illness in our custody. … We are working with [Correctional Health Services] to ensure they are getting the care they need.” The jails are currently under heavy outside scrutiny. On Sept. 25, Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered the city to meet with lawyers for detainees to discuss a move toward federal control of the system. Patrick Rocchio, a Correction Department spokesman, responded by echoing Maginley-Liddle’s comments. “The New York City Department of Correction does not practice solitary confinement, and has not since 2019. The DOC disputes that extended lock-ins as described occur.” Jeanette Merrill, a CHS spokeswoman, did not reply to detailed questions from The News. Instead, she said, “CHS’ clinical and operations staff work with DOC at the local facility level to address on-site access-to-care issues.” “Approaches to escalation are specific to each patient and the clinical and security situation,” she added. “Patients’ needs may range from medication to evaluations for hospitalization.” Benny Boscio, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, acknowledged detainees with psychiatric issues are at times locked in cells, but said that decision is outside the control of his members. “Decisions to lock in inmates within these mental observation units, for safety reasons, are made mutually between DOC supervisors and the medical staff, not by the correction officers,” he said. “He has a tag” Rzewinski was born in Poland and grew up in Queens. After obtaining a master’s degree from Hunter College, she worked for 11 years with parolees, including sex offenders. Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily NewsSocial worker Justyna Rzewinski. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News) “I wanted to work at Rikers to see how it is on the inside,” she said. “I knew it was going to be difficult, and I was prepared. But it was so much different than I thought.” As a social worker with CHS, Rzewinski was assigned to Units 13A and 19A at the Vierno Center, where she was part of a team of counselors and medical staff. The DOC contingent consisted of one officer in the security booth per tour with four more patrolling the unit corridors. Often the units were short officers because of absences, vacations or reassignments, she said. In all, there are 11 MO and PACE units in the Vierno Center with another eight in three other jails. About 18% or roughly 1,150 detainees of the jail population of 6,400 have been diagnosed with serious mental illness. Ironically, Unit 13A was previously known as “The Box” – where detainees who broke rules were isolated 23 hours a day. It remains basically unchanged since Diane Sawyer of ABC News did a segment there in 2016, Rzewinski said. The Sawyer piece shows two levels patrolled by officers, heavy cell doors spotted with rust and grime, tiny “exercise” cages and detainees yelling for help. “Everything looks the same,” Rzewinski said. She soon noticed some of the men held there were simply locked in their cells day and night often without explanation. They screamed, banged, smeared feces on the walls and on themselves. Flies and maggots clustered, and the cells reeked. At any one time, she estimated, there were 10 men on deadlock in the MO unit and another four in the PACE unit – or about 16% of the 88 men held in the two units combined. The use of deadlocking was controlled by the officers, she said. Their immediate supervisors – tour captains and assistant deputy wardens – seemed aware but did little to stop it, she said. “A staffer told me if the Board of Correction came and saw it, they would be in big trouble,” Rzewinski said. Rzewinski provided The News with her own summaries of seven extended lock-ins that ranged from 17 days to more than two months. “That was usually the longest because by then the patient would decompensate so badly, they would need to go to Bellevue,” she said. Officers would routinely lock in new arrivals. “They said it was to see how they would adapt,” she said. “Obviously, if he’s locked in, he’s not going to adapt well.” Taking just one example, a man, who had been locked in for weeks at another unit, arrived at her unit March 1. The officers promptly locked him in. The man’s mental condition deteriorated, until Rzewinski finally convinced an officer to let him out on March 28. His condition improved. A weekend came, and when she returned, the man was locked in again supposedly because a female officer thought he was staring at her. This sequence happened repeatedly – she would return from a weekend and find men newly locked in with no explanation, just, “He has a tag, he’s locked in.” “I said they don’t document that anywhere? And they would say ‘No.’ All they knew was who was locked in because of the tag,” she said. Rzewinski got the man transferred from 13A to her PACE unit. The first thing he asked her fearfully was, “Am I going to have a tag?” she said. “In all, he was locked in for over three months with short periods out,” Rzewinski said. Many of those locked in did not receive medication because under CHS rules, it has to be dispensed to people outside their cells. So, Rzewinski spent a lot of time persuading officers to let the men out. And though the officers, from shift to shift, often had no idea why a detainee had been locked in, they were still resistant. Some officers were sympathetic, she said, but they weren’t always available. “If  they did not lock these people in, we could get something done. But it became all about planning and then hoping the right officer was coming in to let them out,” she said. In late August, Rzewinski landed a position with a large nonprofit and gave notice. She is also pursuing a doctorate at Yeshiva University. “I knew it was time for me to leave,” she said. “I have a daughter. That’s someone’s child in there, and it’s not how they should be treated.” On one of her last days, the man who had repeatedly asked her, “Am I going to have a tag?” returned from Kirby Psychiatric. He was transformed, she said. He had gained weight. He’d had regular medication. He was functional again. But the man talked as if the forced isolation had been his fault. At that moment, she recalled, there were three other men on “deadlock” in PACE and a half-dozen in Unit 13-A. “When he was not doing well, it was from what they did to him. As soon as he’s away from that, he improves,” she said. “I had to go into my office. I didn’t want him to see me cry.”