Blaz to let pols tour Rikers
After News reports on block try, gates open at troubled jail
The de Blasio administration has reversed course and will let state legislators tour Rikers Island on Monday — a change that came after the Daily News reported the city’s attempts to block the visit.
Originally, 11 state legislators, their staff and representatives from the Legal Aid Society and Neighborhood Defenders Service planned to tour Rikers to see the conditions at the troubled jail complex firsthand.
They were told by an official in de Blasio’s administration they needed an appointment first — despite a law allowing state lawmakers to visit at their “pleasure” — and that the earliest day they could visit was Thursday.
But over the weekend, after The News publicized the city’s attempt to stop the visit, the legislators learned the Monday tour was back on track, with conditions: No staff can accompany them, just a handful of public defender reps can attend, and the lawmakers would be split into three groups.
“They are now saying they are not going to obstruct our visit tomorrow. We think that’s great. I feel confident they are not going to obstruct the visit,” said Sen. Julia Salazar, a Democrat from Brooklyn. “Rather than saying no to us, they decided to do the right thing and allow us to visit, but make some effort to manage the visit.”
On Sunday, de Blasio spokesman Bill Neidhardt declared: “Elected leaders are welcome to tour and there will be a tour on Monday. Transparency is key to the approach.”
A source familiar with the jail complex said officials initially balked at the tour because it would have involved 30 people coming into the jail at once, with the legislators’ staff members and public defender reps — all while the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
In recent weeks, The News has reported on a range of problems in the jail: 10 in-custody deaths since December, units in the jail complex going unstaffed for 24 hours or more, five-day stretches in crowded intake cells before detainees are provided a bed, overlong quarantine periods and failures to produce detainees for court appearances.
Criminal-justice reform advocates are still worried the city Department of Correction may try to keep the state senators and Assembly members away from the worst part of the jail complex, so now the politicians are insisting they get to view the intake centers, where new detainees are processed before being assigned a cell.
“We’re glad that the city came to its senses and read the well-established law allowing for this necessary visit from local lawmakers,” said Legal Aid’s Tina Luongo. “We’re also glad that representatives from defender offices can join as well.
“We expect the city to respect the right of elected officials to have unfettered access to jail facilities.”
Salazar and Luongo said they’re most interested in the Anna M. Kross Center and the Otis Bantum Correctional Center.
“That’s frankly because people are being housed in intake which is a violation. Those two should be the priorities,” Salazar said, adding she also wanted to see the solitary confinement units at the West Facility.
The situation at Rikers has become so dire that Ross MacDonald, the chief medical officer at the jail, has asked the City Council for “outside help.”
“Unfortunately, in 2021, we have witnessed a collapse in basic jail operations, such that today I do not believe the city is capable of safely managing the custody of those it is charged with incarcerating in its jails, nor maintaining the safety of those who work there,” MacDonald wrote in a letter to Council members Friday.
Correction officials have said that in July, about 3,500 of Rikers’ 8,500 officers either called in sick or were medically exempt from working with detainees. Another 2,300 simply didn’t come in to work at some point during the month.
Salazar raised the specter of the state stepping in to take control of Rikers.
“I would strongly prefer that the current situation not get any worse.
“Instead, I would hope that the mayor and [Correction Department] get it together to make sure action is taken to address the conditions,” she said. “But it is an option for the state to step in.”