Mayor de Blasio (at podium) last week detailed a major Rikers Island anti-violence initiative. Photo Courtesy of Rob Bennett/Mayoral Photography Office.
Just days following the brutal attack of a correction officer by an inmate inside a Rikers Island facility, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Department of Correction Commissioner Joe Ponte last week announced a 14-point plan to combat violence and promote a culture of safety at the country’s largest jail system.
A female CO was jumped last month by a hulking male convict allegedly bent on sexual assault before the guard was rescued by a band of inmates and fellow officers.
However, the surge in violence among the incarcerated, de Blasio noted, was a driving force behind the reforms unveiled last week.
Thus far in 2015, 711 inmates have been involved in an attack on another inmate. And prisoner-on-prisoner clashes represented 71 percent of all violent incidents on the Island in 2014.
The administration’s agenda features five initiatives to reduce such violence, including keeping weapons, drugs and contraband out of Rikers, in addition to visitor reforms; creating an integrated classification and housing strategy to more safely house inmates; providing comprehensive security camera coverage; designing effective inmate education opportunities and services to reduce idle time; developing crisis intervention teams to respond more quickly to inmate-on-inmate incidents.
“For months, we’ve been trying to understand what’s been working and what hasn’t been working and how to fix it,” de Blasio said last Thursday after touring the new Enhanced Supervision Housing unit. “A lot of effort has gone into figuring out what needs to change, and these changes will now happen very aggressively.”
According to the administration, keeping weapons, drugs and contraband out of Rikers will be accomplished through a number of policy changes, including new rules for visitors that DOC will seek from the Board of Correction. The rules will seek to limit the physical contact inmates may have with visitors, broaden the criteria for restricting visitors, and establish a visitor registry.
Creating an integrated classification and housing strategy will ensure that the toughest, most violent inmates of Rikers are housed with each other, and will separate warring gangs and factions within gangs, de Blasio and Ponte said.
The agency has installed full camera coverage in adolescent facilities and installed camera coverage in nine of the housing units dedicated to 18- to 21-year-olds on Rikers Island. And DOC has indicated that it will add full video and camera coverage within all facilities by February 2018.
Additionally, the department expects that effective inmate education opportunities and services will help stop violence by keeping inmates focused on priorities that assist rehabilitation.
Redefining first line incident responses, DOC has said, will more quickly end violent incidents by training over 300 Emergency Services Unit officers on non-lethal force technique and jointly developing Crisis Intervention Teams, involving training 1,000 officers with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and implementation of teams by this summer.
Additional initiatives that are part of the anti-violence agenda include: improve leadership development and culture; redefine the Investigations Division; design a recruitment, hiring and staff selection plan; design a performance management plan; implement operational performance metrics and analysis; create a well-defined supply distribution process; expand targeted training of officers and non-uniformed staff; raise facilities to a state of good repair; and improve custody management.
“It’s not going to be overnight, the long-term fix to this situation,” Ponte added. “There’s been a lot of short-term things that people have tried. This is the long-term fix. These things will build on all the other things that are needed in this organization.”
By Michael V. Cusenza michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
