Council Panel Raps Lack of Training of Correction Officers

By ALVARO BLANCO

The New York City Department of Correction’s solution to the city’s jail system is simple — hire more officers.

The proposed budget for the Department of Correction shows an increase in funding from $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion, most of which would be used to hire almost 300 more uniformed officers, officials said.

However, at a budget hearing Tuesday of City Council the Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services at City Hall testimony indicated that the solution was part of the problem.

“Currently, DOC’s only training space is a spattering of a leased classroom in a Queens mall,” said Elizabeth Crowley, chairwoman. “On a recent visit, I was shocked by the absolutely deplorable conditions of the facility.”

This training facility was expected to provide the nearly 2,000 officers required for the department to be fully staffed, with 1,200 trained every year, yet the committee argued that the training was not good enough and has called for the creation of a professional academy.

“The administration has identified improved training as a core tenant of reforming the department,” added Crowley. “The capital budget plan must provide for a professional academy, if we are to bring new and existing correction officers up to the standard of professionalism to which we hold the department accountable.”

The current standards for hiring and training correction officers are far lower than those of the fire and police departments, committee members said.  Apart from a simple background check, there are no physical requirements, no age minimums or maximums, a shorter training period, 16 weeks compared to 18 with the fire department. To apply to be a correction officer, only 39 college credits are needed, compared with 62 of a police officer, and correction wardens do not require college credits, unlike police captains who are required to have at least a 4-year degree.

The lack of training, not only at an academy setting but yearly as well, was a point of focus of the hearing.

“I just want to acknowledge that, you inherited a disaster,” told Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte at the hearing. “I don’t know what the hell your predecessors were doing, literally. Rikers Island turned into the wild, wild dangerous west.”

Correction officers are overworked, working two or three shifts continuously, and go well beyond the overtime limits. This comes at a time when prison population is in decline, down from 14, 000 a decade ago to 10,000 today, but for whatever reason contraband and inmate violence has increased by 10 percent.

“There’s plenty of work to be done, but we have to do it,” conceded Ponte.