A group of former prisoners is suing the City of New York, alleging correctional staff on Rikers Island failed to provide them outdoor recreation for weeks while they were locked up inside the city’s troubled jail.  “The Constitution is very clear that people have a right to exercise,” sai d Callen Lowell, one of the civil rights attorneys representing the former prisoners. According to one of two federal class action complaints filed last week, some pre-trial detainees on Rikers Island “went weeks without feeling the sun touch their face,” despite jailhouse rules requiring prisoners get at least one hour of outdoor recreation each day. Rikers Island Jul 15 Rikers Island jail hosts World Cup watch party for inmates, with Mamdani in attendance New York City Jun 29 Mamdani administration says Rikers Island won't meet 2027 closure deadline New York City May 13, 2025 Judge strips NYC of full authority over Rikers Island, citing ‘unprecedented' violence Jail records show one of the named plaintiffs, Peter Perna, filed grievances indicating he was deprived of outdoor recreation on 33 of the 40 days between June 11 and July 20, 2025, while he was held in the Otis Bantum Correctional Center (OBCC), one of several jail buildings on Rikers Island. Perna said the time without exposure to sunlight or fresh air took a toll on his mental health. “They’re depriving you of basically what you do to cope with stress or cope with trauma,” he said. “I remember some days where I was just like very deep in depression, crying, kind of going through mood swings.” Perna pleaded guilty to an assault charge after pushing a subway rider into a turnstile last year.   He said he is remorseful for his moment of bad judgment, which came during a time of personal stress after the death of his mother. “I ended up at Rikers through a series of life crises,” he said. “My mental health was declining and I hurt someone I didn’t know. I deeply regret that.” Now Perna says part of making things right, is speaking out for other prisoners who’ve also been denied outdoor time. “Any time I see something unfair or inhumane, I do want to stick up for who I can, because the treatment there was animalistic,” he said.  In response to questions about the class action lawsuits, a spokesperson for the NYC Department of Correction referred NBC New York to the City Hall Press Office and to the City Law Department. Those two agencies did not immediately respond to inquiries. Wylie Stecklow, another civil rights attorney representing prisoners suing the Department of Correction, said providing daily recreation time is not just a matter of treating prisoners humanely — but also a matter of safety. “When inmates are not given their minimal amounts of fresh air, minimal amounts of recreation, their anxiety goes up,” Stecklow said. “There’s more conflict. There is more violence. There is more danger. There’s more danger to inmates and there is more danger to staff.” For years, the NYC Board of Correction (BOC), an oversight body that establishes minimum standards for the city’s jails, has raised concerns about people in custody not getting enough sunlight and fresh air.  At a Feb. 2024 meeting of the board, Yasmine George-Yilla, the former BOC Executive Director, told jail administrators she was aware of dramatic violations of the one-hour-per-day outdoor recreation standard inside the Eric M. Taylor Center (EMTC), another jail facility on Rikers Island. “At EMTC, there are people who have not had outdoor recreation in over one year,” George-Yilla told Corrections administrators. At the time, Nancy Savasta, then-acting general counsel for the Department of Correction, said efforts were underway to restore regular recreation access. “We have challenges to the provision of rec and we acknowledge that here today,” Savasta said at the time. “We are committed as an agency to meeting minimum standards as the Commissioner said and providing access to recreation on a daily basis to every person in our custody.” In jail records obtained by the former prisoners’ legal team, the DOC often cites staffing shortages for the inability to provide mandated outdoor recreation time. But Lowell blamed mismanagement, not staff headcount,  for the routine denial of outdoor exercise time. “They absolutely have enough money, and they have enough staff to do it. It’s an issue of political will,” Lowell said. Data from the New York City Office of the Comptroller shows the city has some of the best staffed jails in the nation. As of 2024, the comptroller reported there were about 5,950 uniformed officers keeping watch over about 6,200 prisoners in New York City jails. That is a ratio of nearly 1 correctional officer for each prisoner.    By comparison, in 2019, the national average was 1 correctional officer for every 4 prisoners, according to a census of local jails published by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. The two lawsuits against the NYC Department of Correction allege prisoners were deprived of outdoor recreation time mostly under the administration of former Mayor Eric Adams, who repeatedly extended a pandemic-era emergency order suspending several minimum care standards inside Rikers Island. Though Mayor Zohran Mamdani has pledged to bring the Department of Correction back into compliance with those minimum standards, so far, he has continued to extend the emergency order like his predecessor. “While this administration wants us to believe they’re vastly different from the prior administration, so far what we’re seeing on the ground isn’t showing that,” Stecklow said.  The NBC New York I-Team reached out to representatives for both Adams and Mamdani, but did not immediately hear back from either. The beleaguered Rikers Island complex is no stranger to class action litigation. In 2011, a class action entitled Nunez v. City of New York contended that prisoners were subject to systemic brutality and deprivation of civil rights at the hands of jail managers and correction staff. That lawsuit prompted Chief US District Judge Laura Swain to strip the city’s authority of its jail system, ordering Rikers Island into federal receivership in 2025.    Last month, Mamdani joined more than 100 detainees as they watched a World Cup soccer match inside a Rikers Island gymnasium. Stecklow said the mayor’s decision to join inmates for a festive moment showed “a touch of humanity.” But he also said it shouldn’t obscure the need for jail reform. “If he’s just going to go for the quick photo opportunity and not really dig in and cure the problems that these people are suffering, an afternoon of World Cup with the mayor is not going to change anyone’s life,” he said. ...read more read less