Mayor de Blasio begrudgingly toured Rikers Island Monday following immense pressure from other elected officials horrified by their own experiences visiting the problem-plagued jail complex — but didn’t speak to a single inmate, a rank-and-file correction officer or even glimpse a cell that houses a prisoner.
“Today was not about speaking to the individual officers,” de Blasio told reporters at a press conference after his 90-minute tour.
“Today was about the work we have to do and that’s what I’m focused on,” de Blasio said.
He said he didn’t meet with inmates for the same reason.
The mayor also didn’t visit any of the areas that house incarcerated people. Instead he saw an emptied-out intake area.
Hizzoner previously resisted calls to see the deteriorating conditions at the 6,000-person lockup, insisting that he was focused on a five-point plan to reduce violence and improve living conditions.
Union officials blasted the mayor for failing to even look at a cell, many of which have doors with broken locks putting the inmates at risk.
“They gave him a watered-down, sugar-coated tour today,” said Benny Boscio, head of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association.
“He did not go see any housing areas where inmates are housed, they cleared out the area. You could smell the paint, they’d just painted,” Boscio said.
Councilman Bob Holden (D-Queens), who toured the complex last week, was dumbfounded by de Blasio’s “sugar-coated” tour.
“That’s unbelievable,” Holden said.
“When we went we spoke to the correction officers, we spoke to the wardens, the detainees. We spoke to everyone and got a complete picture. He got what he wanted to see or what his staff wanted him to look at,” Holden added.
De Blasio gave few details about how he’d improve jail conditions right now. Instead he repeated his $9 billion plan to close the facility and replace it with smaller lockups in every borough except Staten Island by 2026.
“The whole thing upsets me,” de Blasio said, refusing to give specifics about what disturbed him on the tour.
“I’m not going to bring it down to one thing – the whole situation must be profoundly changed, we have to get off Rikers Island,” he said.
