New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has tapped an ex-con to run the city’s embattled corrections system — with his appointee set to oversee the same jail where he served time for robbery in the 1980s.
Named Saturday as commissioner of the city’s Department of Correction was Stanley Richards, a former felon turned criminal justice reformer, as the new mayor’s administration aims to push a rehabilitation-focused overhaul of corrections.
The 64-year-old Richards will take office in mid-February with a $243,000 annual salary.
“Stanley will make history in this role as the first ever formerly incarcerated person to serve as commissioner,” Mamdani said. “I will turn to Stanley as we work to build a city where justice is at the heart of our corrections system.”
Richards previously worked as president of the nonprofit Fortune Society that provides housing and other services for ex-cons. He is also the city department of correction’s former deputy commissioner of programs and operations.
Richards was convicted of robbery in the late 1980s and served two and a half years on Rikers Island before doing an additional four and a half years in state prison, according to reporting by the Gothamist.
He was released in 1991.
In his first remarks, Richards supported Mamdani’s progressive vision of corrections and rejected what he described as a punishment-centered approach to incarceration.
“Today we turn the page and we start a new era under Mayor Mamdani,” Richards said.
But Richards is taking over a jail system in crisis.
According to the Gothamist:
In recent years, the jails have been plagued by staff misconduct, violence and drug overdoses. At least 76 people died in custody between 2019 and 2025, including 15 last year, according to city data. And a plan to close the facility and replace it with smaller borough-based facilities has stalled in the face of a rising jail population and political resistance.
According to a report by Fox News:
The appointment comes as New York City’s jail system remains under heightened federal scrutiny. Earlier this week, a federal judge appointed an outside remediation manager to oversee reforms at Rikers Island after years of violence, staff shortages and federal court findings that city leadership failed to fix conditions inside the jails. Rikers was originally set to be demolished by August 2027 by former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Under that Rikers closure plan detainees would be moved to four other jails under construction in every borough but Staten Island.
But nearly seven years later, costs have ballooned and the jails are not close to being ready, the Gothamist reported, with one of the facilities in Manhattan’s Chinatown not expected to open until at least 2032.
The mayor said his people were ready to work with the federally appointed manager.
“My administration has, and we look forward to working with the remediation manager on improving conditions in our city’s jails, both for those in custody and for correction officers,” Mamdani said.
The Department of Correction employs more than 7,200 people, including nearly 5,000 uniformed officers organized in the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association (COBA).
In a statement posted on X, Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Benny Boscio said the jails “cannot and will not operate as safely as possible if the concerns of our members are brushed aside.”
He added, “It is our hope that Mr. Richards understands that dynamic as he takes on this new role and demonstrates a commitment to putting safety and security before political ideology.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.