I’m a licensed clinical social worker. For over a decade, I’ve worked with people on parole, many of whom are mandated to substance abuse and mental health treatment. My passion for advocating for those directly impacted by our so-called criminal justice system has also led me to pursue a Ph.D. in Social Welfare. I’ve always hoped to change the policies that harm the people I serve.
So in 2023, when the opportunity came to work on New York’s Rikers Island jail complex, I knew I had to take it. I didn’t want to be another “expert” who spoke about incarceration without ever having set foot inside a jail or prison. I wanted to witness the reality and to stand beside those living it.
I started my job as a clinical supervisor for mental health that December. I was assigned to two units in the George R. Vierno Center, a jail for adult males. One unit was for observation. The other was a PACE (Program to Accelerate Clinical Effectiveness) unit for intensive treatment.
While I had an orientation about my role and job responsibilities, I wasn’t prepared for what I soon witnessed: the widespread use of a practice known as “deadlocking.”
“Deadlocking” was the term corrections officers used to describe how they would lock individuals in mental health units in their cells for weeks or months at a time, usually under the guise of security. Deadlocked patients often went without human contact, sunlight — or their medications, including those to treat their mental illness.
Each day in my units, I had numerous patients locked in. I also witnessed it in other units throughout the jail, and I discussed it with peers and my superiors. Everyone knew what deadlocking was, even the individuals detained there.
While violence against staff is a real problem at Rikers, I saw many people deadlocked due to personal decisions the corrections officers made. An officer would lock an individual in because they felt disrespected by the patient or they looked at him in a “weird way.”
Once patients were deadlocked, they would rapidly decompensate to the point where they’d bang on their doors, scream all day and night, and smear feces all over their cells. The officers would then use behavior that was a direct result of extreme confinement to justify extending it. Sometimes I could not eat lunch because I smelled feces, and I could not concentrate on my work because of the banging and screaming.
Despite the pervasiveness, deadlocking was not an official policy. We weren’t allowed to use this kind of de facto solitary confinement as a tool for managing patient behavior. The practice clearly went against the minimum standards that the Board of Correction had set to ensure safe and humane housing of people detained, especially for those diagnosed with a serious mental illness.
Since deadlocking was against the rules, no one documented it. Officers made up their own system to keep track of who was locked in. In their security bubble, on the control panel, they would place pieces of white paper on top of the buttons that opened the cell doors of deadlocked patients. “White tags” let other officers know not to open a cell.
Because officers had complete control of the practice, psychiatric staff would record missed doses of medication as “patient was not produced” or “patient refused.” To my knowledge, the psychiatric nurse practitioners on the units who were prescribing these drugs saw what was going on but did not speak out.
I could not understand how any of this was happening in mental health units. It made no logical sense that people who were supposed to be receiving treatment were being denied medication and placed in conditions that would exacerbate their symptoms of mental illness.
As a social worker, I am a mandated reporter of abuse or neglect. For instance, when I worked in an outpatient mental health program, we were told numerous times that if we suspected a client was being harmed, we were required to contact the state’s Justice Center for the Protection of People With Special Needs. We also received formal training on how to make a report.
On Rikers Island, I was shocked to learn that I was not a mandated reporter for the adult population I served. I really wanted to report the deadlocking to an outside agency because it was inhumane and against my code of ethics. But I was never told who to contact or how to file a report. I even thought about sharing what I’d witnessed with the Board of Correction anonymously, but I had spoken out about this practice so many times, I was afraid people would put it together. The only way I saw to safely report what I witnessed was to not work at Rikers anymore.
One individual, whom I’ll call B., left a lasting mark on me and sparked my decision to leave Rikers. He taught me that the most powerful acts of advocacy can begin with speaking the truth and walking away from injustice.
B. was in his early 30s. He’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia years before, and he had a long history of arrests and homelessness. Like many of my other patients, he’d been transferred from another mental health unit.
Officers in my unit told me they would be deadlocking B. because that was the case in his previous unit and “he likes to play with shit.” Since deadlocks weren’t documented, I did not know how long this man had been locked in. By the time I met him, he was screaming, banging and smearing feces in his cell. His water was turned off because he’d flooded his cell.
I pleaded with some of the officers on my unit, and they finally allowed him to be “let out” of his cell. As a result, B. was able to take a shower, talk to his peers, participate in the limited activities offered, use the phone, go outside, and — most importantly — he had access to all of his medications.
Since B. had been confined without his medication for at least a month, he still acted oddly. For instance, he often stood by my door and stared. This did not bother me because I knew of his condition. He did great for the first week. However, when I returned to work on Monday, I found him deadlocked again.
None of the officers I asked were sure of why. They did say that they’d heard that a female officer who had come from the unit across from mine to get water from our office felt uncomfortable about how B. was looking at her.
Locked in again, this man was screaming, banging, smearing feces and tearing up his mattress in rage. At that moment, I realized there would be very little change I could make working in that jail.
Eventually, I was able to get B. transferred to the PACE unit, which offers the highest level of mental health care on Rikers. He was terrified when he came in, asking me frantically if a tag would be put on his cell.
Because B. had been found unfit to stand trial, he was on a waitlist for an outside facility operated by the Office of Mental Health. His turn finally came up, and he was sent to a hospital, where he spent approximately three months.
On Sept. 20, my last day on the job, B. came back to Rikers and was unrecognizable. During his time away, he’d received treatment and was not deadlocked. He’d gained weight and was able to have a coherent conversation with me.
It broke my heart when he blamed himself for being deadlocked. I was so heartbroken that I ended the session without telling him it was my last day. Best practice would have been to let him know in advance to give him the opportunity to process and say goodbye. But I would have broken down and cried. I did not want to do that in front of him, the other patients, and the correction officers.
So I went back into my office and cried. I thought this version of B. — healthy, coherent, even happy — was who he was supposed to be the whole time. At that moment, I knew for sure that leaving was the right decision. I could do more on the outside than I could on the inside.
I am a quiet soul who often hides in the corner, but I knew I had to find the voice to speak out. Once I resigned, I testified before the Board of Correction about this practice and received media attention. Soon, I was informed by public defenders who were representing individuals on the mental health units and the few former coworkers still speaking to me that my patients and others were released from deadlock.
The Department of Investigation began a formal investigation that I was told could take a year to complete. Along with Social Workers and Allies Against Solitary Confinement, I am working to pass a state bill that would prohibit health care workers from participating in torture, including long-term solitary confinement. The law would also require health care workers to report suspected abuse of incarcerated individuals or risk losing their license, and provide whistleblower protections to ensure the confidentiality and safety of both the reporter and the incarcerated person.
Stepping forward as a whistleblower is never easy. It means risking your safety, your livelihood, and your sense of belonging. I was very scared that I would face threats and retaliation against me and my family.
I was also afraid of being in the public eye. But I wasn’t alone. From the beginning, I had support from my family, a few close friends, public defenders and individuals from grassroots organizations. The majority of the activists who continue to support me have been incarcerated, so they know what was at stake. They stand by me when I need it the most. This is what every whistleblower needs.
On my last day at Rikers, patients who knew I was leaving presented me with handmade cards. I noticed how they used the colors I most often wore — pinks and purples. This showed how closely they had been paying attention. One of them wrote, “Thank you for being a source of light in a dark place. Thank you for caring, thank you for showing that its okay to take care of yourself.”
The care these men put into those cards meant more to me than any of the degrees I’ve earned, which still sit in boxes years after I’ve received them.
Not a day goes by that I do not think about Rikers and the people I left behind. I do not only remember their names, but also their stories, the times we shared, and their profound impact on me for the rest of my life.
Justyna Rzewinski is a mother, licensed clinical social worker and Ph.D. candidate based in New York City. Born in Poland, she immigrated to the United States at the age of 7, unable to speak English. This experience profoundly shaped her commitment to equity and inclusion. Her work spans clinical practice, research and activism and is grounded in the belief that healing must be the foundation of any just system. Her doctoral research focuses on felony disenfranchisement as a mechanism of racialized political exclusion and democratic suppression. Follow Rzewinski on Instagram at @justynaspeaksup.
In response to fact-checking questions and requests for comment, a New York City Department of Correction spokesperson stated: “As soon as these allegations of unauthorized lock-ins were made public, the Department of Correction referred this matter to the Department of Investigation, and that investigation is ongoing.”
In response to fact-checking questions, the communications office of NYC Health + Hospitals/Correctional Health Services stated: “It is both CHS policy and practice that all CHS staff, affiliated employees, and contracted service providers report incidents that affect patient care, health service delivery, and the safety of staff and patients. When staff encounter barriers to delivering services to patients, they are expected to inform their supervisors, who will escalate, as needed, to resolve such barriers. A Health Service Administrator, and other members of the CHS Operations team, is also available to jail-based staff to address incidents in real time.”
