De Blasio says he’ll tour NYC’s troubled Rikers Island next week after pressure from Eric Adams
Took him long enough.
Mayor de Blasio promised Friday that he will visit Rikers Island next week for the first time in over four years, caving to mounting political pressure as deteriorating conditions at the jail stand to become a national embarrassment for the city.
Speaking during his weekly appearance on WNYC, de Blasio claimed his decision was not influenced by calls from a laundry list of local politicians to visit the island already.
“I don’t care how many people call for something. I got to do what I think is right,” he said. “The right thing to do is to fix the problems, put my best energies there. Now, I’ll go see if those solutions are working.”
Hizzoner declined to immediately reveal the date of his visit, but said he’ll be joined by First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan and Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi.
The announcement came shortly after Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, the city’s likely next mayor, became the latest public official to call on de Blasio to tour Rikers.
“Yes, he should do a walk-through,” Adams told reporters at an unrelated event in Brooklyn. “He should bring all of his top commissioners and deputy mayors to walk through and say: Look what failed policies have produced in our city for decades. Because those men and women at Rikers Island is an indictment on our city, not on this administration only — but on every administration.”
De Blasio last visited Rikers in June 2017.
Pressure for him to go there again began to build after a group of state lawmakers toured the lockup on Sept. 13 and described witnessing a “humanitarian crisis,” with inmates being held in cramped cells without access to food, water or medication, sometimes for days on end. The lawmakers also said jail hallways were lined with human excrement, rotting food and dead cockroaches.
Amid the deplorable conditions, 11 inmates have died on Rikers since December. A 12th inmate held in city Correction Department custody died Wednesday onboard a jail barge docked just north of Rikers.
Though he’s agreeing to finally tour the jail, de Blasio said he considers the visit “symbolism,” not “substantive work.”
“There are different approaches to leadership. Some people, honestly, bluntly, are heavy on the symbolism,” said de Blasio. “That’s great, I get it. My approach, for better or worse, is I want to solve the problem.”
Nonetheless, de Blasio — who found time to tour the One World Observatory with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on Thursday — has been reluctant to take aggressive action on Rikers.
He has bucked calls to use his so-called 6A authority to release inmates locked up on the island for non-violent offenses. He has also rejected more sweeping proposals from progressive Democrats like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who recently said all of Rikers’ roughly 6,000 inmates should be released immediately.
Rather, de Blasio has said the Rikers population will be thinned out by the “Less Is More Act,” a bill signed by Gov. Hochul last week that paves the way over time for the release of hundreds of inmates locked up on technical parole violations.
De Blasio has also laid out a five-pronged Rikers plan focused mostly on punishing correction officers who call out sick without documentation amid revelations about mass-absenteeism in their ranks.
In addition to correction officers, de Blasio has pointed fingers at the state court system, claiming its decision to not operate at full capacity due to COVID-19 has left the city with no choice but to keep sending people to the already overcrowded jail pending trial.
Another aspect of de Blasio’s plan has been to reopen shuttered facilities on Rikers to alleviate crowding, even as he forges ahead with a proposal to permanently close the jail by 2027 and replace it with satellite lockups in four of the city’s five boroughs.
Adams, who has criticized de Blasio’s administration at an increasing rate in recent weeks, said in Brooklyn that he also wants to shutter Rikers, but cast doubt over the satellite jail plan.
“Let’s not displace the problem, because if you take the condition and put it in smaller jails, all you did was make a smaller crisis, and I don’t want to do that,” said Adams, who’s expected to beat Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa in November’s general election.
The spiraling Rikers situation has prompted dozens of lawmakers and advocates to call on the federal government to take over control of the jail.
Steve Martin, a federally-appointed Rikers monitor, recommended Friday that the city bring in outside help to resolve the crisis, citing “poor management” and “systemic dysfunction.”
Thirteen Democratic members of New York’s congressional delegation, including House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, agreed with Martin and asked President Biden’s administration on Friday to provide “immediate federal intervention.”
“We cannot continue to allow Rikers Island to deteriorate,” they wrote in a letter to Biden. “We are neglecting to meet our responsibility to care for incarcerated New Yorkers with dignity and respect.”
