‘Shame on us,’ electeds say after Rikers visit

State Sen. Jessica Ramos spoke about the worsening conditions on Rikers after taking a tour of the jail complex on Sept. 13, 2021. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye

By Jacob Kaye

Fecal matter on the ground, incarcerated people being housed in showers and a person attempting to commit suicide – these were all conditions witnessed by a group of nearly a dozen lawmakers touring Rikers Island on Monday. 

After the tour, tensions rose high at the foot of the bridge leading to the city’s notorious jail complex when the lawmakers and decarceration advocates were confronted by the head of the correctional officers’ union. 

Speaking to the media about the conditions they had just witnessed inside the jail, the elected officials were challenged by Benny Boscio, the president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, a few officers and Anthony Herbert, a conservative candidate running for New York City public advocate. 

After the two groups talked over each other for a few minutes, they decided they could agree on three things – Mayor Bill de Blasio is to blame for the worsening conditions in the jail, Governor Kathy Hochul needs to take immediate action and no one is safe on Rikers Island. 

“Shame on us, shame on all of us who are elected officials in New York,” said State Sen. Jessica Ramos. “I don’t understand where there is a lack of communication in understanding how we’re supposed to treat human beings.”

Ramos said that while on the tour, she and Queens Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas witnessed an incarcerated person attempting to hang himself. 

Nine incarcerated people, including 24-year-old Esias Johnson who died last Tuesday, have died while in custody on Rikers Island in the past year. Most deaths have been by suicide. 

The elected officials, which included Ramos, Gonzalez-Rojas, Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, said that during their tour they witnessed incarcerated people who had gone days without food, were in need of urgent medical attention and some who were being detained inside showers and given plastic bags to use as a toilet. 

“No one deserves this, these are human beings,” Gonzalez-Rojas said. “This is inhumane for everybody.”

Conditions on Rikers have never been worse, said Williams, who is currently running for a second term as public advocate. 

“This is the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life,” he said. “I have been coming to this jail since 2008 and this is unlike anything that has ever happened.”

Williams likened the conditions on Rikers to those of Attica Correctional Facility in the 1970s. Now 50 years removed from the Attica Uprising, during which incarcerated people took control of the prison, Williams warned another riot could be coming soon, this time on Rikers.  

The lawmakers said that in order to improve conditions on the jail complex set to close in 2027, the city must work to lower the prison population. 

There are currently around 6,000 incarcerated people detained on Rikers and the lawmakers say that a portion of them, many who they say are there for low level parole violations, must be released. 

They urged Hochul to sign the Less is More Act. If passed, non-criminal parole violations, including missing curfew, would not result in incarceration. The bill is sponsored by Hochul’s newly named lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin. 

The elected officials also urged prosecutors and judges to stop setting bail and sending people to Rikers and called on de Blasio to institute a work release program he used at the beginning of the pandemic. 

“We are here to say that we have to take these actions to ensure that [suicide] is not a choice these incarcerated New Yorkers are forced to take any longer,” Mamdani said. 

Boscio, who represents nearly 8,000 correctional officers, took offense at the elected officials’ calls for better conditions for incarcerated people and suggested instead that the city needs to hire more officers and spread the incarcerated population out more while keeping them in the facilities. 

“They created this mess and now they want to let all the inmates out on the street,” Boscio said. “Everyone talked about the inhumane conditions for inmates, there are inhumane conditions for correctional officers.”

Officers have been forced to work double and triple shifts with few breaks in the past year as their co-workers have missed work in record numbers. 

The New York City Department of Correction has blamed the increase in violence on Rikers on the severe correctional officer staff shortage.

According to the agency, around 93 officers went AWOL per day in August, missing a total of 2,700 shifts. Two years prior, the jail had an average of 22 AWOLs per day, according to the DOC. 

Additionally, around 1,400 officers were out sick per day last month and another 1,163 were being medically monitored and unable to work with incarcerated people, according to the agency.

In a statement to the Eagle concerning the lawmakers’ visit, DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said he wanted to “thank the state legislators for their visit,” and that he “share[s] their commitment to improving conditions.”

“We have been very clear about the many challenges we have been facing for months, as well as everything we are doing to address the underlying conditions, and it is a good thing that the elected officials who visited today now have a first-hand picture,” Schiraldi said. “That can only help our efforts.”