BILL DE FAIL-SIO
As term nears end, he presides over storm hell deaths, Rikers wreck and baby killed by car
Mayor de Blasio finally signaled he’ll be taking measures to address the life-threatening conditions that have persisted on Rikers Island for months, but correction officers and reform advocates are attacking the plan as too little, too late.
Just a day after lawmakers touring the jail complex witnessed an inmate’s suicide attempt, de Blasio announced Tuesday that the NYPD will now partner with the Correction Department to relieve overburdened correction officers by assigning cops to courts “in as many places as we can.”
“NYPD officers can cover that role,” he said. “Correction officers can be back at Rikers where we need them.”
That directive is part of an executive order to address harrowing conditions on Rikers Island. As the city moves forward with plans to close the complex — it has shuttered some of the buildings there already — the inmate population has soared, doubling in about a year’s time. Correction officers have also been calling in sick at an alarming rate, and about 2,300 did not report to work at all for various shifts in July.
That’s meant officers who continue to show up often have to work double and triple shifts.
To address the staffing burden, de Blasio ordered that the “medical capacity” associated with the jail be expanded to vet correction officers who call in sick and said that officers who don’t provide documentation will be penalized.
“Anyone who is out sick for more than one day will have to go to a doctor for an evaluation or provide appropriate documentation. If they don’t, there’ll be suspension without pay for 30 days,” he said.
The same penalty will be applied to officers deemed as being AWOL.
“We understand it’s tough work and a tough environment, but folks not showing up for work is unacceptable,” de Blasio said.
The reaction from correction officers to de Blasio’s new directive was swift and harsh. Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Benny Boscio said the union wasn’t given advance notice of the plan, or an opportunity to offer feedback on its implications. On Tuesday, he called on de Blasio, who has four months left in office before his term ends, to resign.
“Mayor de Blasio’s latest reckless and knee-jerk solution to the crisis he has created for the past eight years only reaffirms why he is unfit for office,” Boscio said. “He has not visited Rikers in over four years and he has not witnessed firsthand the severity of the damage his policies have created which our officers must endure every day.”
Boscio described Hizzoner’s order as punitive and said transferring correction officers who work in courts to Rikers “will not even make a dent in this staffing crisis,” which he attributed to the mayor’s failure to hire more officers.
“If he wants to start suspending officers for 30 days without pay, he should lead by example and resign for failing to show up and do his job for the past eight years,” Boscio said. “This is a total disgrace!”
Rich Palmer, who worked as a warden at the Robert N. Davoren Center at Rikers and is now retired, said de Blasio’s order will only alienate officers already working longer hours than the standards set by the Board of Correction.
“If you work 24 hours straight — seven in the morning to seven the next day — how are you supposed to work the next day?” he said, referring to how a triple shift might run into the next day’s assignment. “You want the officers to come back to work, but all you do is find ways to discipline the officers.”
Palmer pointed out the maximum that officers are supposed to work according to Board of Correction guidelines is 16 hours straight with at least 10 hours between tours.
On Monday, a group of lawmakers went to the complex and confirmed what many who work and are imprisoned there already know: The conditions are horrendous.
Assemblywoman Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas and state Sen. Jessica Ramos, both Queens Democrats, said they witnessed an inmate attempt to hang himself during their visit to the Otis Bantum Correctional Center at Rikers.
And another lawmaker, Assemblyman Kenny Burgos (D-Bronx) dubbed the complex “Horror Island.”
For years, de Blasio has been touting the city’s plans to close Rikers Island for good, but on Tuesday he conceded the city would now expand the Correction Department’s use of facilities on the island.
To speed up intake at Rikers, two “clinic spaces” will be reopened to process new inmates.
“The original goal, of course, was close down as much of Rikers as possible,” he said. “But we now need to open up two clinic spaces that are currently closed to add capacity, to speed up the intake.”
De Blasio called for help from the state as well, and said that while Gov. Hochul inherited many of the problems she now faces, she should sign the Less Is More Act, which would limit the kind of parole violations people can be jailed for, and speed the transfer of inmates who are eligible from Rikers to state prison.
Advocates for reform and corrections officers found some common ground Tuesday. Neither like de Blasio’s plan.
Alice Frontier, of the Neighborhood
Defender Service advocacy group, attacked the mayor’s directive as insufficient, noting that he should instead focus on releasing inmates charged with nonviolent offenses through what’s known as the 6A program.
“It’s not a plan,” she said of the mayor’s announcement. “The need is immediate and the only thing we can do immediately to get people out is to use 6A . ... He should have decarceration at the forefront of his plan.”
Frontier also favors speeding up intake and adding medical staff, which have also been hard hit in recent months, but she suggested de Blasio’s plan falls flat there as well. “I talked to an entire cell who had been without services, who were in that cell for 13 days — about 24, 25 detainees,” she said.
“Intake needs to be improved by orders of magnitude, not a little bit.”