Bloodier Rikers
Fewer inmates, most violence in a decade
THIS HAS been the bloodiest year behind bars in more than a decade even though thousands fewer inmates are being locked up on Rikers Island, city records show.
There were 108 jail stabbings and slashings in the fiscal year ended June 30. That’s up from the 88 in 2014 and far more than double from the 41 recorded in 2011.
The violence is due in part to raging gang wars and a reduction in the number of inmates placed in solitary confinement, jail bosses say.
“They say the progressive policies of not putting anyone in segregation will make the jails safer,” said former supervising warden Robert Cripps, who retired two years ago. “Tell that to the innocent individual who got stabbed by someone who should have been locked down.”
Jail reformers, including Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte, believe the 23-hourper-day punishment had run amok.
Some rowdy inmates were locked away for months, and many suffered from mental illness, inmate advocates contend.
“If that’s the only tool to manage behavior, than we have probably lost the battle,” Ponte told the Daily News on Wednesday.
Still, the department hadn’t had more than 100 stabbings and slashings since 1999, a time when there were about 5,000 more inmates. The average daily population over the past fiscal year was 10,295, records show. That count hovered around 15,000 in the late 1990s.
The rise in violence comes as the de Blasio administration has poured millions into the jail system. All told, the city has earmarked $125.4 million to fund the department’s broad 14-point anti-violence plan.
In tune with a national trend, in January the de Blasio administration announced it would stop housing young inmates in solitary at the start of next year.
Also under the new rules, all inmates now who act out can be given a maximum of 60 days in the so-called Bing within a six-month period. Inmates must also be allowed a week of freedom in the jail general population to break up the two 30-day Bing sessions.
The changes come as almost every key metric to measure jail safety is going the wrong direction, including inmate fights and pepper spray used by correction officers, records show.
Correction officials say that the number of “severe” uses of force by officers against inmates was down by 13%, from 161 in fiscal year 2014 to 140 this past fiscal year.
There was also a 32% drop in inmate fights at the city’s troubled adolescent facility, where Ponte has enacted many of his ballyhooed reforms, jail officials pointed out.
That’s also where the de Blasio administration last month agreed to a set of sweeping reforms, including a federal monitor, a rule against hitting inmates in the head and the introduction of body cameras on officers.