rampant mismanagement at Rikers led to deadly violence and covid outbreaks
500 guards were scheduled on one day for Rikers, but only 302 could actually work - 61 guards short of filling positions in the jail, a the New York Times investigation found this and more shortfalls
We go to The New York Times for this week's long read by Jan Ransom and Bianca Pallaro, read the whole article “Behind the Violence at Rikers, Decades of Mismanagement and Dysfunction.” We include key excerpts below to convince you it’s worth your time.
Deadly mismanagement at Rikers jail allowed to run unbridled
The leaders of the New York City Department of Correction had already lost control over Rikers Island this fall when they went in search of one small measure of relief.
They needed 19 correction officers whom they had posted at the Queens criminal courthouse to fill in at the massive jail complex, where staffing was short, slashings and stabbings were up and detainees had gained control over some housing units. It was Columbus Day, a holiday, and the workload at the Queens courthouse was comparatively light.
But when the bus to Rikers arrived at the courthouse, many of the guards refused to board it. Instead, according to interviews, they claimed the onset of sudden illness. Seven of them dialed 911, complaining of chest pain, leg injuries, lightheadedness and palpitations. One produced a cane as proof of disability. More than a dozen officers left in ambulances. Rikers remained understaffed.
The Columbus Day episode underscores how easy New York City’s leaders have made it for jail guards to sidestep assignments they do not want, even as Rikers Island has been gripped by its worst crisis since it reeled from the crack epidemic in the early ’90s.
Underscored
A New York Times investigation — drawing on confidential memos and other internal city documents, hundreds of pages of public records and interviews with more than five dozen city officials, correction employees, detainees and their lawyers — has found official missteps going back decades.
For years, mayors and correction commissioners have allowed jail managers to place the least experienced officers in charge of detainee dorms and cells, posts that are critical for keeping order but viewed by many as the least desirable assignments in the system. The managers, who base staffing decisions on seniority, department custom and office politics, have also filled the jobs with guards who have fallen out of favor with administrators, reinforcing the idea that they are punishment posts to be avoided.
When those guards in the housing units have fallen ill, gotten injured or been barred from contact with incarcerated people for other reasons, other rules adopted by city leaders have made finding replacements unusually difficult.
Bottom line
The failures are especially stark given the vast sums the city has spent on the Correction Department. At an annual cost to taxpayers of more than $400,000 per inmate — more than six times the average in the nation’s other biggest cities — New York has operated a jail complex that has broken down in fundamental ways, leaving some detainees to roam unsupervised and others to go without food or basic health care.
The fallout has occurred largely out of sight, on an island in the East River that most New Yorkers never visit or even think about.
It can be measured in loss of life — more than 16 men have died in the jail system this year — and in the thousands of injuries inflicted on other detainees, who, by September, had been slashed, stabbed, beaten or otherwise harmed at a pace of 38 per day for more than 270 days straight. Most of the detainees at Rikers have never committed violent acts in jail, and more than half suffer from mental illness or other serious ailments.
Read the whole article here.
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