NYAPRS Note: In NYC, a person with lived experience in the criminal justice system will now act as a partner on the city’s Board of Correction. The potential role for peers across the system(s) are vast, including within the jails and prisons themselves to act as liaisons for people integrating back into the community. NYAPRS is committed to building the foundation necessary to build more of these vital positions.
Mark-Viverito Taps Former Inmate for Correction Board
Capital New York; Gloria Pazmino, 5/21/2015
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito will nominate Stanley Richards, a former inmate turned advocate, to the city’s Board of Correction.
Richards, 54, grew up in the Soundview section of the Bronx and spent over a decade in and out of the New York State correctional system. He was released in 1991 after serving a final sentence of four and a half years for robbery.
He now serves as the senior vice president of The Fortune Society, a nonprofit organization that works to support inmates’ reentry and promotes alternatives to incarceration.
Mark-Viverito presented his nomination to the Council’s Democratic caucus on Thursday.
In an interview with Capital, Richards said his time in jail makes him a unique candidate to serve on the board, which is responsible for setting minimum standards for the city’s jails and oversees the Department of Correction.
“My experience and my work will add a tremendous amount to the board—I lived it,” Richards told Capital. “I was in those cells. I’ve seen the brutality, I’ve seen what it’s like when all the newspapers go away, when the commissioner doesn’t visit, when the captains and the wardens go home. I know what that environment is like.”
Richards was first hired as a counselor by The Fortune Society in 1991 after his release and worked his way up, becoming manager of career development, and then deputy executive director. He is personally responsible for helping to develop Fortune’s “drop-in center” in Queens Plaza, which helps outgoing inmates who are dropped off from Rikers Island.
While in jail, Richards earned his G.E.D. and a college degree.
“It really gave me the foundation to say, ‘Wait a minute, what am I doing?’” he said. “I am not the dumb kid who couldn’t do anything, who was destined to a life of crime, prison or death, and I started realizing that the power of my life was not in the power of the police officers in my community, or the system, it rested with the decisions that I made.”
Richards has already met with Department of Correction commissioner Joseph Ponte about his appointment.
Describing Ponte as a “change agent,” Richards said he wants to hold the department accountable but not “beat them over the head” at the board’s monthly meetings.
“I want to be part of the solution, I want to be part of the helping the system get better—be about minimum standards, or about conditions of care and custody and control, the opportunities that we provide to people as we hold them accountable to give [inmates] second chances so they don’t come back, there is a huge opportunity to do that,” Richards said.
Asked about the current conditions at Rikers and the focus that has been placed on the department in the last year, Richards said he was not surprised by reports detailing the jail’s violent culture.
“It’s been a closed system, it’s very isolated and controlled by perceptions that people who are in there are people that don’t deserve to be treated like humans, so what we are hearing now has been going on for many, many years,” Richards said.
If confirmed, Richards will replace Alexander Rovt, a Bloomberg appointee, whose term officially expired in 2008, and who submitted his resignation earlier this month.
In a statement to Capital, Mark-Viverito said the Council is “proud” to nominate Richards.
“His unique perspective of personal experience with the criminal justice system will provide needed oversight and transparency to New York City’s jail system,” Mark-Viverito said. “Stanley is an exemplary member of the community who has dedicated his career to helping the formerly incarcerated successfully transition back into society and the Council looks forward to working with Stanley and the entire Board of Correction as we work together to improve the conditions of New York City’s jails.”
The Council is expected to take up the nomination in June.