Ex-convict jailed on Rikers Island becomes commissioner of NYC's Department of Corrections
發佈日期: 2026-04-25 21:19
TVB News
New York City's Department of Corrections Commissioner Stanley Richards knows how bleak life can be in a prison, especially Rikers Island - a notorious jail complex - he used to be an inmate. In a remarkable redemption, the former prisoner now runs the place.
Stanley Richards walks down the corridor of his old cell block at Rikers Island. "My cell was somewhere around here," he says.
But now he is New York City's commissioner in the Department of Corrections.
Richards said, "It doesn't give me bad feelings, you know, I offended my community and committed a crime and I paid my price for it. The truth of my story is a story of redemption. And so leading this department right now, I give all praise to my Lord and Saviour to take me from 13-Upper to Commission of the New York City Department of Corrections."
In January, Mayor Zohran Mamdani tapped Richards to become the first formerly incarcerated person to oversee the city's jails.
His office is inside a converted chapel across from his old cell block. He dropped by his old 10-by-7-foot cell and reflected on how little seemed to have changed - except maybe his perspective.
The aging dormitory where Richards was once an inmate before turning his life around was emptied of prisoners three years ago due to its deteriorating physical condition.
A city law passed in 2019 mandates the closure of all jail facilities on the 400-acre island, located just north of LaGuardia Airport, by 2027.
Richards said, "You come across the island, you see these buildings. The building we're gonna close was built in the 1930s. You see these facilities, this is one of the newer facilities. So you could imagine what the other facilities look like. The people in our care, we're not the judge and jury, that is up to the courts. But when they are sent to us, our responsibility is to care for them. And that's why it's so important to close Rikers. These are very old facilities. And we need to create new facilities, use design that is centered on the humanity of our staff and the people in our care, because they deserve it."
