The proposal, which immediately put union leaders on the defensive, appeared to be an acknowledgment by the administration that some of the highest ranking uniformed officers were an obstacle to reform at Rikers, something jail critics have long argued.
“We’re handcuffed by some laws, in terms of how we choose personnel,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference. “And we are going to work to change those laws, because we have to have the flexibility to bring in people who can help us really fix something profoundly broken.”
His remarks came a day after Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, criticized the pace of the de Blasio administration’s reform efforts. In particular, Mr. Bharara raised questions about the promotion of two Correction Department officials who an internal audit said reported distorted data about inmate fights.
In a blunt statement, Mr. Bharara, who published a highly critical report last month detailing violence at an adolescent jail at Rikers, warned that his office stood ready to file a civil rights lawsuit against the city to compel changes.
He referred to an investigation by The New York Times, which found that the city in 2013 did not provide federal investigators with large sections of the internal audit that described the omission of hundreds of fights from the official statistics on violence at the adolescent jail. The audit concluded that William Clemons, the warden of the jail at the time, and his deputy, Turhan Gumusdere, were responsible for the omission and ordered them demoted.
The correction commissioner at the time, Dora Schriro, removed most of the criticism about Mr. Clemons and Mr. Gumusdere before the city gave the audit to federal investigators looking into accusations of civil rights violations.
The two officials continued to advance through the ranks. In May, the new commissioner, Joseph Ponte, appointed Mr. Gumusdere warden of the largest jail at Rikers. And despite objections from the city’s Department of Investigation, Mr. Ponte promoted Mr. Clemons to chief of department, the top ranking uniformed position.
