Violent attacks by inmates against each other and Dept. of Correction officers at Rikers Island spiked over the past year even as the jail population dropped, according to new city statistics.
The overall “rate of violent incidents among individuals in custody rose by 24.5%, and the rate of serious injury to individuals in custody as a result of these incidents rose by nearly 24%,” according to the mayor’s annual Management Report released Tuesday.
Slashing and stabbings jumped by 10.4%. Assaults against staff also rose 3.4% percent, leading to a staggering 37% increase in serious injuries to Dept. of Correction officers, the report found.
“There’s really little to no consequence to the inmate for fighting or for bad behavior,” Joseph Russo, president of the Deputy Wardens Association, told The Post.
“So the inmate is not concerned about that when he has a fight with another inmate or assaults staff,” Russo said.
The report, authored by First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan and Mayor‘s Office of Operations Director Jeff Thamkittikasem, attributes the rise in violence to the declining inmate population that’s part of de Blasio’s plan to close Rikers by 2027.
“As the Department’s overall population has declined, DOC is managing a population made up of individuals with more serious offenses,” Fuleihan and Thamkittikasem say in the report.
“From Fiscal 2018 to Fiscal 2019, the percentage of the population with confirmed gang affiliation rose from 15.4 percent to 16.4 percent,” they note.
Th city’s average daily jail population dipped below 8,000 for the first time last year since 1980.
A DOC spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
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