Rikers Island’s Staff Count Declines, Use Of Force Remains High

QUEENS – Staff at Rikers Island continues to face a steady decline as the Department of Correction contends with understaffing issues propelled by the pandemic, according to Comptroller Brad Lander.

The department had under 7,000 officers on staff according to the latest update through Oct.2, a sharp decline from under 10,000 prior to the pandemic, Lander said in an update released Thursday.

"DOC has not demonstrated the ability to end the violence on Rikers Island, which the data shows continuing at an alarming rate," Lander wrote in a letter addressed to the federal judge presiding over the Rikers case, Laura T. Swain.

"I urge you to appoint a Federal Receiver empowered to make decisions that the City has failed to adequately contend with for many years."

Last week, three Rikers Island correction officers faced federal fraud charges over accusations that they pretended to be sick for more than a year while collecting their pay.

The report also showed that the use of force within the city’s jails remains high at over 34 incidents per 100 people in custody for the last three months, 80 percent higher than the pre-pandemic average.

Rikers Island is dealing with an alarming rate of deaths at the facility, marking 17 deaths this year, according to Lander, and 33 since Jan. 2021.

Lander has asked a federal judge overseeing the consent decree over operations at Rikers Island to institute a federal receiver to make operational and management reforms.

The city’s jails have already been under the oversight of a federal court-appointed monitor after filing Nunez v. City of New York, a class-action lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Society in 2011.