DOC boss tells officers to get back to work
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DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi, pictured alongside Chief of Department Kenneth Stukes, told reporters Tuesday that staffing shortages were to blame for the uptick in violence on Rikers Island. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
New York City Department of Correction Commission Vincent Schiraldi had a message Tuesday for correctional officers who have been missing shifts at their job on the city’s notorious jail complex: get back to work.
But before he could make his request, the commissioner, who was appointed in May, announced that a person had died while in custody early Tuesday morning. The death is the ninth on Rikers this year.
“I had hoped to start out today's press conference with some good news but unfortunately have the worst kind of news to deliver. An individual in custody passed away at the Anna M. Kross Center this morning,” Schiraldi said outside of his office on Rikers on Tuesday. “The increase in individuals passing away in our facilities is actually one of the issues I plan to discuss today and I want to start by giving you a clear understanding of exactly what's driving the current conditions and facilities and what we're doing to address it.”
Esias Johnson, 24, was found dead in his cell in the Anna M. Kross Center around 9:45 a.m., on Tuesday. Johnson, who was processed into Rikers on Aug. 7, was being held on a fugitive arrest warrant and charged with menacing, according to the DOC.
The cause of his death is under investigation.
Schiraldi blamed the bulk of the jail’s safety issues on correctional officers who have gone AWOL at some point in the past couple of months. According to the commissioner, around 93 officers went AWOL per day in August, missing a total of 2,700 shifts.
In August 2019, 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.
The agency also sees an increase in those out on sick leave – officers have unlimited sick leave – on holidays. On July 4, there were more than twice as many officers out sick as there were on June 4, according to the DOC.
“Staff are the heart and soul of our operations,” Schiraldi said. “We cannot improve safety until we're fully staffed. When staff don't show up to work, every aspect of our operations suffers.”
The commissioner also said that correctional officers are organizing “bang-ins,” or days in which they don’t show up for work even though they’re not sick.
“We have been taken advantage of for too long,” one message from a correctional officer allegedly posted and circulated on social media reads. “Let’s take our lives back.”
Schiraldi said that the staffing shortages have caused an uptick in violence throughout Rikers and have also resulted in a decrease of programming for incarcerated people.
Benny Boscio Jr., the president of the Correctional Officers Benevolent Association, said that rather than a staff shortage, the increase in the incarcerated population is to blame for the increase in violence.
“Commissioner Schiraldi is shamefully demonizing our officers at a time when inmate attacks against us are at an all time high and City Hall’s negligence has created the crisis we now face,” Boscio said in a statement to the Eagle. “The reality is that triple shifts are happening because in just one year, the inmate population has nearly doubled and Mayor de Blasio has refused to hire a single Correction Officer for nearly three years.”
Correctional officers rallied in Queens last month to demand an end to triple shifts and better conditions on Rikers Island. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
“The Commissioner and the Mayor need to take a B Post in a gang affiliated housing area, while being outnumbered 50-1 and work 25 hours plus without meals and bathroom breaks before lecturing us about our service to the city,” he added. “This is a disgrace.”
Since January 2014, the DOC has seen a 46 percent decline in the incarcerated population and a 7 percent decline in its staff, according to the DOC.
The commissioner said that in order to get officers back to work, they’ve implemented a series of incentives and disincentives, including punishing officers who miss shifts. Though the punishment policies aren’t new – docking vacation days, holding a disciplinary hearing and, ultimately, termination – they haven’t been used in the past year. The agency has compiled a list of the worst offenders and will begin with punishments in the coming weeks.
“We have a whole bunch of things on the books that we just haven't been keeping up with,” Schiraldi said. “So, now we're going to discipline people when they go AWOL.”
The commissioner also added that the DOC is in the process of hiring 600 more officers, including some who have come out of retirement to return to Rikers.
“We're literally calling everybody who left within four years in good standing,” the commissioner said.
However many staff members return, Schiraldi said he wasn’t sure if he’d be there to see it or his New Day DOC reform plan and other changes implemented.
DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi pleaded with officers to return to work on Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2021. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
“I think that there will come a time when some mayor may look me in the eye and say, ‘you can't be commissioner anymore because things are too crazy here,’” Schiraldi said. “I don't know that three months is the time to do that, but that's not going to be my call to make.”
Schiraldi is the third person to serve as DOC commissioner under Mayor Bill de Blasio.
The commissioner also called on judges, district attorneys and defense attorneys to expedite cases of those currently incarcerated at Rikers in an effort to reduce the incarcerated population.
“We have to interrupt this cycle at many points all at once,” Schiralid said. “There's no home runs here, just a lot of singles and doubles.”
