Increase in Budget for Rikers Is Applauded
New York Times; Michael Schwirtz and Michael Winerip, 2/10/2015
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to add about $54 million to the Correction Department budget was praised on Tuesday by inmates’ advocates and longtime department critics who said it demonstrated a commitment to rein in the brutality and corruption that have long plagued Rikers Island.
The proposal, if approved, would be the second budget increase for the department since Mr. de Blasio took office, reversing years of staffing cuts during the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, when violence reached extremely high levels.
It follows months of pressure from city and federal investigators and scrutiny by the news media.
“I really notice a significant sea change,” said Dr. Robert L. Cohen, a member of the Board of Correction, the city agency that monitors the jail. “You can really start to feel reform taking place.”
Mr. de Blasio unveiled the proposal on Monday as part of a $77.7 billion spending plan that focuses on public safety agencies.
But the administration indicated that most of it would go toward reducing the use of force by officers, hiring guards and improving programs for young inmates.
About $3.6 million would be allotted for better screening of prospective officers, as well as rebuilding a recruitment unit that was dismantled in 2009.
Last month, the city’s Investigation Department released a report detailing the Correction Department’s failure to properly recruit and screen new officers.
In a review of 153 recent applications, investigators found that one-third had problems, including that the applicants had been arrested or belonged to gangs.
In presenting his spending plan, Mr. de Blasio said the additional funds would help get Rikers “away from any of the practices of the past that we found unhelpful and unfair.”
The budget requires approval by the City Council.
Not included in Mr. de Blasio’s proposal is money the Correction Department considers necessary to end solitary confinement for all inmates under age 21, which the city announced it would try to accomplish in a year’s time.
Doing so would put New York at the forefront of national jail reform efforts, but, according to Joseph Ponte, who became correction commissioner in April, it would require a substantial increase in staffing.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Ponte said he would request additional funds for this later in the year.
How the administration balances its priorities at Rikers will depend in no small part on the outcome of settlement talks with Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan.
In December, Mr. Bharara announced that he was suing the city over what he described as a failure to address the dysfunction at Rikers quickly enough.
Mr. Bharara has insisted that resolution of the lawsuit include some form of federal oversight at city jails, which could mean a federal role in determining how the Correction Department’s budget is spent.
Mr. de Blasio has acknowledged that Rikers was not a high priority when he took office last year.
But a series of revelations about abuse of inmates and rampant corruption by guards has made the jail impossible to ignore.
Last summer, The New York Times published the results of an investigation detailing 129 cases in which inmates suffered serious injuries in violent encounters with correction officers. Less than a month later, Mr. Bharara’s office released a report with similar findings about the treatment of the city’s youngest inmates.
Since then, the city has made several changes that have earned praise from inmates’ advocates. In December, the department eliminated the use of solitary confinement as punishment for 16- and 17-year-old inmates. The number of guards assigned to adolescent units has doubled, and these officers have received additional training. In the most difficult cases, one guard is now assigned to only two inmates.
The rate of violence in 2014 was the highest in more than a decade, a sign, correction officials and inmates’ advocates say, that there is still much work to do.
At a meeting of the Board of Correction on Tuesday, Dr. Cohen said parts of Rikers lacked the most basic resources.
Some inmates with mental illnesses were unable to go to therapy sessions, he said, because there were not enough handcuffs or enough officers to escort them.
Some of the areas housing inmates with mental illnesses, he said, have three to four times the rate of violence of anywhere else in the jail complex.
Elizabeth Crowley, Democrat of Queens, who is the chairwoman of the City Council committee overseeing the Correction Department, argued that the additional funds did not go far enough.
Among other priorities, she said, there is a need for a new training facility with space to accommodate more officers, something she said she would push for.