DOC added new beds at Rikers without permission, oversight board says
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The Board of Correction on Tuesday accused the Department of Correction of repeatedly ignoring their authority and enacting changes on Rikers Island behind their backs. Screenshot via BOC
By Jacob Kaye
The Department of Correction’s civilian watchdog board accused the agency on Tuesday of repeatedly ignoring their authority and enacting changes on Rikers Island behind their backs.
During a tense Board of Correction meeting this week, members of the board said that the troubled city agency increased the number of beds in at least one facility on Rikers Island without first consulting the BOC.
Board Chair Dwayne Sampson said he was alarmed that the DOC added the beds without first getting permission from the board, which sets a number of minimum standards of care for incarcerated people including how many can be held in the DOC’s various facilities.
“The board standards are in place to keep people who live and work in the jail safe, and to promote humane conditions,” Sampson said. “I find it troubling that the department proceeded with adding beds above the allowable limit in the board's minimum standards without first seeking a variance from the board.”
Despite moving ahead with growing the facilities before the meeting, top DOC leaders officially asked the BOC for permission to add beds to two facilities, and to continue keeping additional beds at a third facility on Tuesday. The board granted the DOC’s request with several conditions.
The fight over the additional beds appeared to mirror a confrontation between the BOC and DOC at the board’s February meeting.
Last month, board members fumed at agency leaders after they failed to tell them about a new punitive housing unit that they had opened in alleged chaotic fashion the week before the February meeting.
BOC members said last month that they were “disturbed” to learn that they had been cut out of the loop when it came to the opening of the “Special Management Unit” at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers Island.
The SMU, which is designed to serve as a step down from the most restrictive punitive unit on Rikers, allegedly houses detainees who have a history of committing violence behind bars. Their placement in the unit isn’t based on a single infraction but is instead determined by their infraction history and their risk classification score, which is calculated by the DOC.
Members of the board who visited the unit in February and spoke with four of the five people currently being detained there said a number of the minimum standards for care set by the BOC were not being met, including out-of-cell time – detainees in the unit are limited to seven hours out of their cells, well below the 14 hours required under the minimum standards.
Just as was the case with the SMU, the DOC first consulted the state’s Commission on Correction on the bed expansion rather than the BOC.
“Beds were open without actually anything being submitted to the Board of Correction,” BOC member Felipe Franco said Tuesday. “Last month, we were talking about the SMU facilities, you guys were very clear that you actually have been in conversation with the SCOC for a while, until then eventually you came to talk to us. So, who makes a decision on who you talk to first?”
DOC officials defended the bed expansion on Tuesday, claiming it was necessary to prevent overcrowding and to keep both detainees and officers safe.
The DOC claimed that on top of the increasing population at Rikers – which nearly hit 7,000 people on Tuesday – the city agency has been unable to send over 300 people who have been convicted and sentenced to state prisons because of the illegal prison guard strike that only recently ended but threw the prison system into crisis.
According to the agency, the state said they would not begin to receive new prisoners until at least March 31.
But BOC members pushed back on the DOC’s plan to increase the number of beds on Rikers, claiming that they should instead be doing more to reduce the incarcerated population through work release programs and pushing City Hall, prosecutors and judges to use their powers to lessen the number of people sent to the jails in the first place.
“You clearly have a plan to increase the number of people that are being incarcerated that's inconsistent with the department's commitment to reduce the population,” BOC member Bobby Cohen said.
After getting the BOC’s approval, the DOC plans to add 72 beds to West Facility, 100 beds to the Otis Bantum Correctional Center and 60 beds to the Eric M. Taylor Center.
Though the BOC voted to approve the beds, the approval will be up for renewal in two months.
The DOC said that not only will they likely again request permission to keep the new beds, but will likely ask for more.
“Despite these helpful gains in bed space, the need for additional bed space and continued flexibility will continue,” Assistant Deputy Warden Raymond Sanchez said.
