McKinsey Delivers Final Rikers Report After Violence Soars Nearly 50% During Contract Period

In April 2017, McKinsey partners send a confidential final report to the New York City corrections commissioner after spending almost three years leading their project at Rikers Island. The contract, which ultimately cost $27.5 million, ends with violence at the jail complex having increased by almost 50% compared to when McKinsey was first hired in 2014.

Despite McKinsey’s supposed efforts to reduce violence through data analytics, algorithms, and organizational restructuring, the use of force by guards at Rikers continues to climb. By 2020, a federal monitor will describe violence at Rikers as reaching an ‘all-time high.’ Slashings and stabbings in 2021 will be up more than 1,000 percent from 2011 levels.

The city terminates its contract with McKinsey in 2017, and Mayor Bill de Blasio announces that Rikers will be closed by 2026, due in part to the 20% increase in violence during the period McKinsey implemented its 14-Point Plan. In May 2022, New York City will stop using McKinsey’s Housing Unit Balancer system for classifying detainees, abandoning the expensive algorithm that was the centerpiece of McKinsey’s work.

The Rikers engagement represents a spectacular failure of management consulting in the public sector: an expensive firm with no relevant expertise delivers rigged data, unusable technology products, and recommendations so flawed that even the troubled agency being advised rejects them. Meanwhile, conditions for incarcerated people worsen dramatically. The $27.5 million spent on McKinsey consultants could have funded direct improvements to staffing, training, mental health services, or facility conditions that might have actually reduced violence.