It’s de Blasio’s Hellhole
MAYOR de Blasio all but admitted the obvious Tuesday: The Rikers jail complex is a dangerous, out-of-control, inhumane hellhole. Yet he offers nothing meaningful to fix it.
“We have a situation that is just not acceptable,” Blas huffed Tuesday, and never mind that he’s the one who has accepted it. Serious reform will clearly have to wait until he’s gone in just over 100 days.
How bad is it? As lawmakers toured Rikers on Monday, an inmate tried to commit suicide before their eyes. Par for the course: Esias Johnson, 24, recently became the 10th Rikers “resident” to die in the last nine months.
The pols say they had to sidestep “pools of piss” in the intake area. Feces and rotting food covered floors. A dozen men packed a single cell. Broken cell doors. Inmates with chronic conditions not seen by doctors. Queens Councilman Robert Holden wants Gov. Kathy Hochul to send in the National Guard.
Despite numerous recent Post reports of horrors at Rikers and demands for action from lawmakers, Blas only rolled out his lame five-point plan Tuesday. It calls for tougher measures for no-show corrections officers and emergency contracting to fix broken doors and clean the facility. All fine, but it offers little else of real substance.
The mayor also wants Hochul to enact the “Less Is More Act,” to release yet more criminals, even as violent crime soars. (The bill targets those held on “technicalities” for release, but two-thirds of Rikers’ 6,000 inmates are accused of violent crimes.)
Correction officers union chief Benny Boscio Jr. wants more guards hired, but more important (as a federal monitor noted last month and the Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas has stressed on these pages) is better management. Having officers work three shifts in a row is a recipe for disaster.
The fish stinks from the head. De Blasio couldn’t simply focus on rebuilding Rikers or fixing its management woes; far easier to just blame the problems on COVID, talk up his “plan” for new, replacement jails (in, maybe, seven years) and rush off to the Met Gala.
It’s one more problem he’s passing off to his successor. Wish New York’s next mayor good luck with it.