BLAZ TOUTS RIKERS
Says staffing and vaccine rate improving as violence declines
As correction officers started working 12-hour tours — and hundreds of their colleagues remained unvaccinated — Mayor de Blasio and Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi on Wednesday claimed the Rikers Island crisis is turning the corner.
Schiraldi said the number of officers working triple shifts and absent without leave and the number of unstaffed posts have all declined — resulting in the start of a decline in staff use of force and violence in the jail population.
In the period from July to November, Schiraldi said, there was an 11% decline in uses of force, a 12% drop in assaults against staff and a 9% decline in fights between detainees over the previous five-month period.
“We’re not popping the champagne corks. … Nothing to celebrate yet, but so far, some early indicators are the violence and use-of-force data is bending in the right direction as the population declines with fewer unstaffed posts and fewer triples,” he insisted.
Schiraldi and de Blasio hope to get the Rikers’ staff closer to full force as more uniformed correction employees are vaccinated.
De Blasio voiced confidence the department’s vaccination rate will shoot up in coming days as unvaccinated officers are placed on unpaid leave, citing similar trends at other departments like the FDNY and the NYPD. “We are going to work this through. We’ve seen it with every agency — there’s a certain number of days where things need to sort out and they do sort out, and it’s going to happen again here,” he said.
As of Wednesday morning, 6,016 correction officers were vaccinated — which works out to 77% of the total uniformed staff of 7,814, Schiraldi said.
Meanwhile, 570 correction officers are “at risk” of being placed on unpaid leave for violating the mayor’s mandate and not providing the department with proof of vaccination, mayoral spokesman Mitch Schwartz said.
Being “at risk” means “you’re not vaccinated, as far as the department currently knows, and you haven’t submitted a reasonable-accommodation request,” Schwartz said. “If you show up to your next shift with your vax card .... then you’re not placed on [unpaid leave].”
About 9% of the Correction Department’s uniformed staff — 708 employees — have applied to be exempt from the vaccine mandate for personal reasons.
Those officers will continue to work while their requests are reviewed.
Adding them to the group of officers who have been vaccinated means 86% of the department’s uniformed workforce — around 6,700 people — is eligible to work, city officials said.
Of the remaining 14%, or 1,090 officers, a significant number are on long-term sick leave, while others are on vacation, family or military leave, Schiraldi said.
Requiring officers to be vaccinated — and putting the unvaccinated on leave — is a poor idea, said Benny Boscio, president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association.
“How is putting hundreds of officers on leave going to make our jails safer or help the inmates get their essential services?” Boscio asked.
The percentage of vaccinated officers on duty Wednesday was 3 points higher than on Tuesday — when the Correction Department’s vaccination mandate went into effect — and 30 points higher than Oct. 19, when de Blasio first announced shot requirements for all municipal agencies.
The entire Correction Department — including civilian employees — has a total vaccination rate of 80%. As of Monday, the Correction Department was one of three city agencies with vaccination rates below 89%. The others are the NYPD, at 87%, and the New York City Housing Authority, at 86%.
Schiraldi stressed the 12-hour tours are a temporary fix to bolster staffing, not a long-term solution for correction officers. “We want to get rid of that as soon as you possibly can,” he said.
Meanwhile, there are roughly 5,200 detainees in the system, Schiraldi said. There were more than 6,000 detainees in the jails in September, he said.
Conditions at Rikers deteriorated so much this year that prisoner advocates described the situation as a humanitarian crisis. Fourteen inmates have died on the Island this year. One elected official dubbed Rikers “Horror Island” and several members of Congress urged President Biden to intervene.