More inmates sent out of city
CITY Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte is sending an increasing number of dangerous inmates to lockups around the state, in an attempt to curb violence on Rikers Island.
The number of inmates transferred from New York City went up by 47% — from 36 in 2011 to 53 last year, according to records obtained via a Freedom of Information Law request.
While the raw numbers represent a small portion of the 10,000 or so inmates in the city, sources say most of the people transferred are hardened gang members responsible for repeated attacks on staff and other prisoners.
Critics say the transfer program is a poor way of dealing with violence.
“Substitute jail orders are not effective as a violence reduction strategy,” said former Acting Correction Commissioner Mark Cranston.
Many of the inmates were later returned to Rikers Island because they continued their violent ways in their new environs, he added.
“If they want to get back to Rikers, the first thing they are going to do is act out to get sent back,” Cranston said.
Exhibit A is Steven Sidburry, 25, a Brooklyn resident, who was sent to the Albany County jail to separate him from members at Rikers in 2015.
Sidburry, who is charged with murder and arson, was involved in more than 40 violent assaults in borough jails before his transfer, records show.
As part of that deal, Ponte agreed to pay the cash-strapped Albany County jail $100 a day to supervise Sidburry, who is widely known by his nickname “John Doe.” SOURCE: CITY CORRECTION DEPARTMENT gang
But the move didn’t last long.
Sidburry slashed an inmate with a shiv hidden up his butt, so fed-up Albany officials returned him to the city.
Back in New York, Sidburry continued to act out, slashing a rival detainee in the face in March, records show. He’s since been placed in solitary confinement until his trial.
The longstanding inmate transfer program was tossed into sudden peril Friday by a scathing state Correction Commission review.
The oversight agency ordered the end of all inmate transfers from outside the five boroughs to the troubled city jail system because of serious safety concerns.
The commission cited lack of proper staff in high-risk areas, officers using pepper spray without proper training, and the city’s failure to report suicides and deaths for a two-month stretch this year.