Juanita Holmes on leadership in the face of criticism

Juanita Holmes, commissioner of the New York City Department of Probation and veteran law enforcement officer who served in the NYPD for over 35 years and at one time was that agency’s highest-ranking female officer, is facing criticism for various reasons, including hiring her niece for a senior post. There's also concern about an increase in recidivism among probationers. In an interview with City & State, Holmes reveals her rationale behind her decision-making and her plans to keep the agency moving forward. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Commissioner, thank you for speaking with us. If you don't mind, first, please introduce yourself to City & State readers as if they've never heard of you.

I am the commissioner for the New York City Department of Probation, appointed March 2023 by the Hon. Mayor Eric Adams. I come from a family of 12 siblings. I am the second oldest. I grew up in a modest home, born in Brooklyn. That's where my parents bought a three bedroom, one bathroom home. My father was a laborer, whether it was welding or working for the stone company. He just wanted us to be provided with all opportunities available. My bachelor's is in biology. I originally wanted to go into medicine and psychology but I ended up joining the police department as a result of my sister and her boyfriend, who were police. I took the exam and joined the police department in 1987.

When you came to probation in March 2023, what were your primary goals?

Working with the New York City Police Department I was in a lot of our underserved communities. So I'm in those homes. I know what people are met with: the lack of opportunity, the lack of knowledge of an opportunity. I established mentorship groups with strong people behind me. One was “Girl Talk,” a mentorship group that is still going strong in the NYPD, in probation and also 16 high schools in the Department of Education have implemented it. I had a strong juvenile team in most of my commands, I was focused on that, and I thought that was important. But equally, we have strong youth teams that go into the homes of some of our young people, meet with their parents, and try and guide them and encourage them to join some of the successful programs that we had in the police department, such as the Explorer or Cadet programs. I felt that I had the fortitude, the knowledge and the vision to come into probation and bring some opportunities to our client community.

Let’s discuss your transition. There seemed to be some friction that may or may not have catapulted you from the police department to probation in 2023. Do you want to share what went down between you and former Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, if anything?

I have always respected and admired Commissioner Sewell. She was one of my guest speakers for my “Girl Talk” mentorship program. I think that rumor got blown way out of proportion. There was a misunderstanding surrounding the timed run that was a requirement for graduation of the police academy. And the rumors were so strong in the media, they never got the true story. It was the Municipal Police Training Council that would not accept that run as a requirement for graduation. When the department pushed back the MPTC said, “You can do what you want to do, but if someone files a lawsuit based on not passing the run then you're going to have to deal with it.” It was never established that that run was required. So it was the state saying this, not the mayor, not me, not myself and Sewell having some sort of discourse over it. That wasn't the case. But that story never got out there.

Your use of data and transparency has been questioned. Describe the probation department on your first day.

I remember being met with, “you have a City Council budget hearing in two weeks!” I needed data. I'm inquiring, “Give me some data for this, give me data for that.” The data was so generic. The reporting wasn’t the reporting I'm used to. So, I remember seeing, oh, we're 90% successful. Successful at what? And what's 90%? 90% of 100? 90% of 10? That was my wake-up call. 

I remember one of the probation officers said what was perpetuated to them before me was, “the more probationers that stayed out in the community, the more relevant the department stayed.” Regardless of how they were reoffending! I took the bull by the horns. In four months, I was running through here making assessments of where our gaps were and what we needed to focus on in order to be successful, but more importantly, to be fair to our clients. There were certain systems that weren't in place, supervisors weren't signing off on subordinates’ time. I said, “okay, we got to do something to garner some structure and order here.” A hierarchy of supervision needed to be established, but more importantly, training. Re-establishing a curriculum, ensuring that it captures every aspect of what a probation officer does was very important to me. We're doing very well with that. Supervising probationers have said to me, “these new guys really come out of the academy knowing their stuff.”

Another gap was you would get promoted to a supervising probation officer you would keep the same shields you had as a probation officer. There was backlash in the media about, “Juanita created new shields similar to the police department.” First of all, the Department of Homeless Services and various other city agencies, such as traffic, school safety, mimic the uniform or the colors of the NYPD as well as the shields. I didn't implement that. The shield that they were wearing is the same shield our detectives wear. That was designed decades before I got here.

I said, “Listen, you have to know who the boss is.” There was no training for supervising probation officers. So we had to put a quasi-training in. Even the union president, who's a supervising probation officer, went through that particular leadership training and thought that it was really good. 

But let's talk about the attrition I met … coming in here. Probation officers are leaving because the Administration for Children’s Services pays more money. Westchester County pays more money. Those are some of the things that we were met with. I advocated from day one, and will always advocate for my people who go out in the same communities that the NYPD goes out into. They need to be safe, wearing vests, uniforms, carrying radios to communicate. God forbid, if you're met with some sort of unexpected… You know, incident. That propelled me to push the uniforms. But more importantly, I never even knew that they were going out doing home visits not carrying firearms. Not wearing vests. Not carrying radios. I'm very concerned about their safety. I'm a proactive individual. Everyone wants to equate firearms to me implementing firearms, when Commissioner Martin Horn in 2002 implemented firearms.

Not only that, the notice of examination for probation officers says you have to qualify in New York state for a firearm. So I walk into an environment where people are not only not carrying a firearm, some haven't been before a range in 20 years. They didn't realize that they would lose their peace officer status, which would now create the issue of no longer being a probation officer. We know the things that can happen in New York City. I stated that at my last Council hearing. And when I walked out of there, what happened a couple hours later? The person walking into (that Park Avenue) building, unfortunately, and shooting and killing individuals (last month). 

What kind of data did you have when you took over probation?

What I walked into was instead of reporting the number of offenses committed by our probationer clients, they would report the number of probationer clients that committed offenses. So naturally, that's going to give you a different average. I didn't discover this until 2024, when I finally start drilling down on the data, because I wanted a dashboard to support the information that I'm reporting. I wanted the numbers to reflect how many crimes are being committed by probationers, not how many probationers are committing crimes. Because that's how many victims are being impacted out in the community. We knew that it was gonna balloon as a result of our reporting structure.

The only way I know how to fight recidivism or fight crime is by having transparency. We ended up having an offline meeting in February of this year with City Council Criminal Justice Committee Chair Sandy Nurse and Council Member Althea Stevens to explain, “You're going to see an increase in recidivism, because we're using a different reporting structure for the MMR report. It's going to seem like it's ballooning.” We established “Probation Stat” in November 2024 and that’s when we discovered the data was being undercut. January 2025 is when we officially started turning over the real data. But from January to June 30, our trajectory is downward. We were down total citywide, 5%. I use the term, "underreporting" to describe what had been going on before me because that's how I relate to it. But the previous methodology wasn't revealing true recidivism numbers. And now reporters want to play on the fact that “oh, it's a 19% increase, it went up 1,000 people?” Right. Because I'm reporting true numbers.

Please talk about Mirza Razwan, your former chief information officer who resigned earlier this year, allegedly sidelined by you. His previous experience includes hardware and systems but his resume doesn’t reflect policy analysis experience, nor is his education listed. What happened there when he left, and at the same time your niece was hired to a senior role. 

When he was interviewed he touted his data skills and experience migrating information. He interviewed well. But the thing is, he still had to be vetted in order to solidify that title of CIO … My former chief of staff was the one who hired Razwan… for a lower-level position. I wanted to see his skill sets, and if he was able to deliver. Turns out when the background check came back, the Department of Investigation couldn’t verify his education, if any. 

When I spoke with Razwan I asked, “Can you continue this build-out?” The response I got was “No.” So, that's when I realized he didn't have certifications or qualities to support all that we needed on the IT team. There were other issues such as the department had no protection, no firewalls. Someone could have accessed our information, and compromised our juveniles' information, or staffer's information. I wasn't looking to lose him, I have to be honest. I was looking to keep him, but I brought in someone else. 

What I did next was a judgment call on my behalf. I hired my niece who has been in the police department, making similar money. She's phenomenal in IT. In seven days, she came in and mitigated a lot of our IT unit’s challenges. Now we're working with Microsoft to build out a case management system that I wanted so we can leave our legacy system, which doesn't support our needs. Razwan interviewed her, he gave her a thumbs up and they were supposed to work together.

Do I regret making that decision now? I more so regret the fact that she was exposed as being my niece than hiring her, because we needed her. However, our department is full of legacy hires, some even made by higher-ups in our Human Resources department.

So, you didn't force out Mirza Razwan?

No, he's still on my payroll. He never resigned, that's what we said to reporters. He's still a DOP employee on loan to the deputy mayor’s IT team. My niece was hired, but Razwan interviewed and recommended hiring her without knowing she was my niece. Someone compromised her information and gave it to the press.

You've had a long career in public safety, without much recognition, yet you keep doing it, and you keep taking hits. Where does that grit come from?

From my mother, Joyce. My mother was very strong. My brothers and sisters, they really look at me, like a second mom. And I think that's where I got fortitude from. Also, the mayor always said, “don't listen to the noise,” and he's absolutely right. I can't stay focused and do what I need to do if I'm listening to the noise.

Speaking of the mayor, there have been a lot of changes under the Adams administration, and you have reportedly taken some criticism from First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro.

People referred to it as criticism. It really wasn't criticism. One thing I love about First Deputy Mayor Mastro is from the time I met him, I had his cell number, and he told me “anything you need just call.” He's my boss first and foremost. I respect him and he really gives me some great advice. And I can't knock it.

Tell us about how you plan to keep the momentum and morale in your department going.

We have our own academy graduation coming up which is tremendous, because they didn't do formal graduations until I started. They are sharp in their uniforms, they look good. The mayor has appeared at the ceremony. Their family is there celebrating. In addition to that, on Thursday we are doing a first-time promotion ceremony, which is done all the time in other departments. We have civilians that are being promoted that have 37 years, 38 years, one is 40 years with the agency, and never experienced what they're going to experience on Thursday. And we created something called a “unit citation”… for things like reducing recidivism or finding more jobs for probation clients than others. I'm trying to envision and think what would take our minds off of this negative media, because I'm the frontliner, the leader, the commissioner, and so naturally the focus is on me. But they don't realize what they're saying about the agency affects the hard-working men and women of the Probation Department who do a great job. I have to stay focused, I have to keep them focused. I want great things for them and our clients.