JAIL WOES RIFE
Away from Rikers, lockup violence surging
VIOLENCE AT the city’s three jails that are not on Rikers Island has spiked in the past three years, records show.
The Brooklyn Detention Complex logged 58 stabbings and slashings from 2015 to 2018. The complex only had one during the six years prior to 2015, records show.
The downtown facility on Atlantic Ave. — which reopened in 2008 — is now considered one of the most dangerous in the city. There have been four slashings at the jail in 2018 so far, records show.
Union officials and inmate advocates — two sides that normally lock horns — have found common ground over the troubling increase in violence in the three jails in Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan.
Both sides agree that the city needs to do more than close the 10 jails on Rikers Island to end the violence. The city has plans to shutter Rikers in the next decade and open borough-based detention centers.
“The false narrative that building more borough jails is the magic pill is eviscerated by these stats,” said Sidney Schwartzbaum, the former union president for top jail supervisors.
Schwartzbaum and other union officials said that inmates who are violent in the jail need to face stiffer punishments.
“Policies need to change,” he said.
Inmate advocates oppose any major changes to the disciplinary system and are particularly against bringing back solitary confinement for younger detainees.
But they agree that the closure of Rikers will not remedy the long-maligned jail system.
They argue the sweeping shutdown plan must include a major change in the culture of how detainees are treated and handled by officers and medical staff.
“Otherwise, we’ll just have four Riker Islands,” said Elizabeth Gaynes, CEO of the Osborne Association, a criminal justice reform organization.
In April, a federal monitor overseeing the department reported that correction officers’ uses of force against inmates has gone up over the past two years, despite a series of initiatives designed to reduce those violent encounters.
Steve Martin, the monitor, detailed a series of cases of alleged officer abuses. In some, the officers were never punished after an internal “Rapid Review” team concluded there was no misconduct.
Also, department investigations often take years to complete.
“The department struggles with conducting timely investigations that result in reasonable outcomes,” Martin wrote.
As for the Rikers shutdown plan, Gaynes and others point out that the jails off the island will either be totally new, like the one planned in the Bronx, or drastically revamped.
“Rikers Island inherently creates its own dangers because of its design,” Gaynes said.
New jails are expected to have more rooms for programs, better air conditioning and heating, and easier access for visitors.
The city’s other jails have long been considered relative safe havens where inmates angled to get placed. That’s no longer the case. The Manhattan Detention Complex had 41 stabbings and slashings from 2015 through this year, records show. By contrast, there were 14 similar bloody attacks from 2009 to 2014.
Additionally, the Vernon C. Bain Center in the Bronx has been a dangerous place for detainees over the past three years.
There were 16 slashings on the 800-bed floating correctional facility from 2015 to 2018. There were five from 2009 to 2014.
Overall, the violence figures are trending in the right direction for the first time since 2011, jail officials point.
The total number of stabbings and slashings in the entire jail system went down by 15.4% last year, from 155 in 2016 to 131 in 2017.