By: Hellen Zaboulani
Inmates at Rikers Island are running around unchecked— answering phones and destroying equipment—as New York City’s main jail facility suffers a staffing crisis.
As per the NY Post, the ongoing staffing shortage left charges wild at the jails to stab other inmates, answer the phones and run through halls breaking maintenance equipment. On Sunday morning, at the Anne M. Kross Center, which is the jail’s largest building, three inmates from the Folk Nation gang jumped a Bloods member, slashing his face while the housing area was unmanned. As per internal communications reported by the Post, 30 patrol posts across the AMKC were unmanned. At that time, 26 corrections officers were working quadruple shifts, and 35 were on triple shifts.
Also on Monday, the anarchy continued. “One of my captains in AMKC called a housing area and the inmates answered the phone,” said Patrick Ferraiuolo, president of the Correction Captains’ Association. “[The inmate] said ‘Hey how you doing captain? The officer went home, he was tired, he was going into his triple or fourth tour and he left, he left us here alone.’ So it’s a housing area with no correctional officer watching over them… this is an everyday occurrence,” Ferraiuolo recounted. “It’s just been a nightmare.”
The day before at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center, another Rikers facility, a group of inmates ran loose through the corridors and broke fire safety equipment before officers got to the scene, as per an internal email. “Numerous inmates were running through the corridors. They [sic] inmates broke the fire cabinets and numerous exit signs throughout the corridors. They also removed the hoses and nozzles from the cabinets,” notes the email, sent by an assistant deputy warden.
Last week, corrections officers and captains protested outside the jail, complaining about outrageous working conditions. “We are deeply concerned about the safety of our staff, medical staff, and incarcerated people in our facilities and are working hard to improve conditions,” DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said in a statement Monday. “We have been taking extensive measures to encourage staff to return to work, to relieve those who have been heroically working extra shifts to compensate, and to make this an environment where any parent would feel like their own son or daughter was safe working or living here.”
The DOC told the Post that roughly 3,000 out of 8,800 staffers either called in sick in July, or weren’t working with inmates, and “thousands more” went AWOL. The agency has recently implemented a new strict sick policy requiring staffers to get a doctor’s note to confirm illness.
