Rikers 'guard down'

1 in 5 daily no-shows at jail complex

About 1 in 5 Rikers Island employees are currently not showing up for work, and a short-staffed lockup has led to dangerous, chaotic conditions at the city jail, a top Department of Correction staffer revealed Wednesday.

On Tuesday, nearly 2,000 of the more than 8,300 Rikers workers took a sick day, DOC Chief of Staff Dana Wax said during a City Council hearing called in response to alarm from local politicians about harrowing circumstances at the jail complex.

“Of the 8,370 uniformed members of service, 1,789 of them were out sick yesterday. One-hundredtwelve of those were newly out sick, meaning it was their first day out . . . 68 staff members were out on a personal emergency, 93 were AWOL, meaning they did not let us know they were not coming in that day,” she said.

The high absentee rate meant dozens of units were without floor officers, who work alongside guards observing inmates from behind protective plexiglass, she said.

“There were approximately 70 units that did not have a B officer,” Wax said. “When we say that a unit is unmanned, that means there is no B officer. There is always an A officer — we are always sure to have eyes on the unit — but there were 70 posts that at one time yesterday did not have a B officer.

“We rapidly worked to identify and relieve officers that were on triples, but prioritized first getting someone on that unmanned post.”

The many absentees force the staffers who do show up to work grueling 16- and 24-hour shifts — triples — exhausting, unsustainable schedules the DOC vows it’s working to eradicate.

“We hate these triples, and that’s why we’ve developed the plan we have to extinguish them,” Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said. “I’ve looked these folks in the eyes when they’re on triples, and it’s heartbreaking

“We wouldn’t have a triple problem if people came to work.”

Later Wednesday, Schiraldi told workers that any officer who goes AWOL will be suspended without pay for 30 days under a new City Hall executive order, according to an internal memo viewed by The Post.

A correction-officers union rep claimed Schiraldi had painted an inaccurate picture.

“This is the same department that for years published erroneous jai- violence statistics,” the spokesman, Michael Skelly, told The Post. “They cannot be trusted.”

Additional reporting by Meike Leonard