Mayor Plans to Boost Safety on Rikers

By PAUL FRANGIPANE

Mayor Bill de Blasio outlined on Thursday sweeping plans to beef up the corrections staff on Rikers Island and equip existing officers with new Tasers to increase safety.

Speaking at a press conference at the prison the mayor announced that 700 new Rikers corrections officers would graduate in November, followed by a spring graduating class of 1200, which he called an “unprecedented” number.The increase comes after a high rate of overtime shifts by current officers.

“The cause for hope is the sheer numbers we are talking about here,” de Blasio said. “And they are unprecedented. We literally will not stop until this status quo is fundamentally changed.”

The mayor added that the emergency services unit on the island would be provided with 20 Tasers in an attempt to curb violence. Each unit supervisor was slated to get a Taser, an action that the mayor said would curb violent incidents between inmates and staff.

The mayor also said that new entry scanners would be added that are similar to those in airports to help keep weapons and drugs out of the facilities.

“In my 19 years with the department, I have never seen the amount of change that has happened in the last two years,” Warden Maxsolaine Mingo said before de Blasio reached the podium.

“This change has brought positive results and the staff feels safer.”

In the first seven months of 2016, staff injuries have gone down 66 percent, while use of force with serious injuries has gone down 75 percent, Mingo said.

Mingo classified an “incident” as any use of force, assaults on staff, fights or other acts of violence. Mayor de Blasio reiterated this and said that 214 days have passed with no incident at the George R. Vierno Center on the island.

After recent controversies, including the case of Kalief Browder, who was accused at age 16 of stealing a backpack and spent three years on Rikers before he killed himself at the age of 22, the mayor said he saw a decrease of violence on the horizon. After talk of closing the island by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, de Blasio has said that should be fixed not abandoned.

He added that officials were not yet “popping any champagne bottles. We have so much more to do.”