Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Tours Rikers Island and Holds Media Availability

September 27, 2021

Video available at: https://youtu.be/A9U43BBjaic

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I'm going to give you a couple of minutes of updates, followed by a minute from Commissioner Schiraldi, a minute from Deputy Commissioner Richards, a minute from Chief Stukes, and a minute from Dr. Katz. So, you're going to get the whole lineup of people who are addressing these issues.  

Here's the bottom line, we’ve got a lot changes we have to make. And what I came here to see was the work that is being done to immediately address the problems. Hold on, guys – what's going on over there? Are you good over there or not? No, back behind you, I keep hearing a lot of talking. Are you good back there? Everyone good? Okay.  

The mission for me today is to come and see the specific changes that are being made to address the immediate problem. Let me give you an idea of what those are. First of all, we’ve got to reduce the inmate population. So, I was looking at the places where that reduction is happening, what it is causing in terms of improving the situation for officers and inmates alike. We have a lot of additional actions we're going to take in the next few days. As I said, our goal is to get overall population down under 5,000 for the jail system very, very quickly. Second – guys, you good over there or not? Hello, over there – are you good or not? Okay, guys, please, I really want to go through this fast so everyone could hear us. So, everyone, focus for a second.  

Second, we needed to make sure that the health care teams are getting the support they need. Their role is crucial. They need to be supported. They need to be safe. We talked about the changes they need in terms of staffing, in terms of the physical reality, additional help we can bring in, that was a crucial component of this. Third, the intake process – the intake process has to be sped up. We looked at the facilities, looked at the changes that have been made, the changes that have to be made. The bottom line is all these things have to happen immediately. Fewer inmates, a faster intake, a better, more secure health care situation, and getting back to work the folks who have not been working. And I think that message has been received loud and clear. We want to support the officers who are doing the work. We care about them. We appreciate them. We're going to support them, incentivize them, give them real support. But the folks who are not doing their job are going to suffer the consequences, because they're letting down their fellow officers and everyone in this city. So, that's abundantly clear.  

The final point, what we have to do – we can't do it today, we can't do it tomorrow, but what we have to do as quickly as possible in this city is get off Rikers Island once and for all. That plan is in place. It is moving rapidly. That is the bigger solution. This is not a place that should continue for the long haul. We need to move these community-based jails. They are – they will be humane. They will be modern. They will be an environment that's right to rehabilitate people. That work can happen quickly enough. But, in the meantime, we're going to keep driving down the population and making the other changes we need.  
Now, in order again – Commissioner Schiraldi, Deputy Commissioner Richards, Chief Stukes, Dr. Katz. 

Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi, Department of Correction: Hello, everyone. I'm Vinnie Schiraldi, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction. And I want – I think for those of you who know me, I've established a record for being blunt and forthcoming. I want to say that when I got here, I was really upset by the conditions that were in existence in these facilities. I still think we have a way to go. But over the last several weeks, when the Mayor has been putting enormous resources into this and enormous pressure on me and our department to make things better, things have demonstrably improved. I still think we have a lot of work to do and we're going to do that work, but triples are down, sick leave is down, AWOLs are down, the population is down. And now, every – every living unit has programming available to them in units. We can't get them all out to rec, because we still don't have enough staff to take them outside to recreation, but they have in-unit recreation available to them. And these are exactly the kind of conversations I have with the Mayor. He said, what's it going to take, Vinnie? What do we got to do? And we said, everybody needs to have the ability to have rec. And everybody's got the ability to have rec now. And we said, the population has got to decline. They called the Governor, she signed Less Is More, she started taking people out of here, and the population’s declined.  

So, if we have fewer people incarcerated here, if we have more staff coming to work, if we have help from places like the New York Police Department, NYPD, then we'll be able to, bit by bit, gradually reduce triples. And then, we'll start to improve even further, because we'll start to be able to create the kind of environment we want for everyone who's here. Our goal is nothing short of, if my son or daughter worked here, what would the environment I would want to be like? And if my son or daughter was incarcerated here, what conditions would I want for them here? We are not there yet, but that's our goal and we'll never stop for anything short of that. Thank you. 

First Deputy Commissioner of Programs and Operations Stanley Richards, Department of Correction: Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Stanley Richards, First Deputy Commissioner of Programs and Operations. As Commissioner Schiraldi said, we work every single day to try to improve conditions, make sure people are connected to programming so that people can rebuild their lives so they don't have to come back here. And as a formerly incarcerated man who spent time in HDM, the facility that's right behind this facility, we moved our office out here, because we knew that this work wasn't about being at distance, it was about being up close and personal. And I want to thank the Mayor and the First Deputy Mayor for being bold and leaning in and saying that it's not good enough what we've done. We've done some things, but we need to do better, because at stake are the lives of our officers and lives of those who are incarcerated and their families. And we work every single day to make it better. So, thank you. 

Chief of Department Kenneth Stukes, Department of Correction: Good evening, everyone. Chief of Department Kenneth Stukes. I would just like to – first, thanks to Mayor and his office for their support to the agency, for giving us the support that we need to create a safe and secure environment. And a safe and secure environment is just not for our person in custody, but for our staff. And it's important that we acknowledge our staff who, throughout COVID has championed and came to work every day. And some of those staff members who became ill, after getting well, returned back to work. Definitely, we will be – remain a correctional department that is one that is leading the country. 

Mayor: Thank you, Chief. Dr. Katz? 

President and CEO Mitchell Katz, Health + Hospitals: Hello, everyone. Dr. Mitch Katz, the CEO of Health + Hospitals. We’re responsible for the medical care of all the inmates on Rikers. We have great doctors and nurses. In order for the system to work, though, we have to have a close partnership with Corrections, so that our staff are safe to provide the services in the clinic, safe to go out into the areas where the inmates are and provide them with the care, and that the areas where patients-inmates come in through intake, they are safe from being exposed to infectious diseases. And there was clearly a problem with the previous intake area. It was too small. It did not allow us to move inmates quickly through the process so that we could be sure that people were not exposing each other. Thanks to the Mayor and to the Commissioner, we now have a new intake area, which is much larger, allows excellent flow of patients-inmates, make sure that they're not spreading communicable diseases like COVID. Thank you. 

Mayor: Thank you. So, in conclusion – look, we've got a hell of a lot of work to do. I want to be very clear about that. The last few weeks we've been able to change some things that needed changing immediately, but there's a huge amount more work to do. We're going to stay focused on it. I have daily calls with this group. We're going to make every change we need to. Most importantly, get that population down, get people back to work, end the triples – these are all things we intend to do in October, that can make a very big and real impact.  

So, with that, I'll take some questions. 

Question: What does it say about the management of the jail? Seven years into your mayoralty, there are a thousand broken [inaudible] and it takes a crisis to get 500 of them fixed – 

Mayor: We have, every step along the way, tried to fix the problems here. When I came into office, there were immense problems here. We were able to fix a number of them, but we also have a massive, massive challenge with COVID that honestly setback so much of what we had done. The bottom line is, we're fixing the problems again. But, most importantly, we've done the big things we need to do, which is get off Rikers once and for all. Go ahead, Gloria. 

Question: [Inaudible] you haven’t said anything about what you saw [inaudible] what you did [inaudible] I mean, you're here, but we haven’t heard – 

Mayor: I'll give the – the Commissioner can tell you the exact facilities so we got the names right. Go ahead. 

Commissioner Schiraldi: Yep. E-M-T-C and O-E-C-C – 

Mayor: Why don’t you say the full name – 

Commissioner Schiraldi: Yeah. Eric M. Taylor Center and [inaudible] Otis Bantum Correctional facility – Otis Bantum Correctional Center.  

Question: And could you talk about what it was like, what you saw, what your reaction was? You have not been here for your entire second term, so talk to us a little bit about – 

Mayor: Sure. What – again, this place is a place that should no longer be a jail in general. It's the same as four years ago. But the work that we've done in the meantime is to get this city out of Rikers Island once and for all. What I saw is work that needs to be done. Clearly, the intake facility was better. We know the numbers – the intake is going down all the time in terms of the amount of time. We saw people doing real work to improve the facility. We know there's a lot more to do.  

Question: Mr. Mayor, why did you not bring a single journalist [inaudible] – 

Mayor: Because this was an opportunity to go and see exactly what work was doing – was being done. Look, I respect the role that journalists have to play. This was an official tour to see the work and have the conversations with the people doing the work. Go ahead. 

Question: [Inaudible] Commissioners that you were upset with what you saw?  

Mayor: I was upset when I took office. I was upset four years ago. I remain upset. This is a place that should have been shut down a long, long time ago. Go ahead. 

Question: [Inaudible] what was the most upsetting thing you saw today and [inaudible] is this a place where you would have your own child [inaudible] – 

Mayor: Look, every parent does not want to see their child end up in incarceration to begin with, obviously. And I feel for any parent that, no matter how much they do, ends up with the pain of that reality. This is a place that needs a lot of work. So, I think that the Commissioner is right, our job is to do everything we can within a broken structure. It's 85 years old, a lot of this. It should not be here anymore. Our job is to do what we can with what we have and make it better and get fewer and fewer people here. 

Question: Mr. Mayor, a couple of questions here. The president of COBA said that he was demanding that you speak with Correction officers today while you were – hold on – did you do it? If so, what was the outcome? If you didn't, why not? And then, the other part of the question is, you have been criticized now for many months and it has been said [inaudible] exacerbated the situation [inaudible] a crisis here that you haven't fired any Correction [inaudible] – 

Mayor: Okay. We – thank you. Thank you. I got it. I got it. We, for a long time, had a huge number of Correction officers with a plummeting population. That situation reversed very rapidly during COVID. We started a new class to bring officers in, they'll be in soon. In terms of the union, I've been very, very clear. I have tremendous respect for working people, tremendous respect for the officers who have shown up and done the work, I appreciate them personally, very, very much. The union has exacerbated this crisis. The union has acted in an incredibly irresponsible manner. So, today, was not about speaking to the union. Today was not about talking to individual officers. Today was about the work we have to do, that's what I focused on. A few more, go ahead. Hold on a sec. 

Question: Elected officials that come here and when they see the conditions firsthand, it's a lot worse than they thought. We're hearing a lot of the same policies [inaudible] continue with, why is there not more [inaudible] what's different about now that you’ve seen it firsthand?   
  
Mayor: Again, guys – I could give you a fake answer if you'd like, but I don't think you want that. I saw this the first time I came and every time I've been here, this –  
  
Question: [Inaudible] 
  
Mayor: It says that we need to get – no, I'm going to tell you what I've done under my watch. I've put the plan in place to get us the hell out of here, that's the bottom line. It's a place that is structurally broken, but, within that, we can make a lot of improvements in the short term. The real answer is to get off Rikers Island once and for all. You want to add anything?   
  
Commissioner Schiraldi: Yeah, I mean, I just think it's important to recognize there were 11,000 people here when the Mayor was first inaugurated and now there's 5,600 people. So, almost exactly half of what it was. So, all by itself, that's a pretty big achievement. I mean, what other Mayor in the country can say that? But aside from that, on the staffing issue, when there were 11,000 people, there were 9,000 Correctional officers. Now, there are 5,600 people and 8,300 Correctional officers. So, there are now more Correctional officers than there are incarcerated people. So, it's not really just a staffing problem, it's a staff coming to work problem, because a third of them are unavailable to work on any given day. So, that's what the Mayor has helped us do, is help bring in NYPD, and have some private providers doing some of the non-inmate facing work around here, reducing the population. All of those things will help us in triples. We have triples not because he didn't hire enough staff, because not enough staff were coming to work.  
  
Mayor: And I want to, just a quick add to continue the answer to the question, appreciate what the Commissioner said. Look, we made a very conscious decision with the NYPD to radically reduce arrest. I remember the day that Bill Bratton said to me early in my first term that arrest is not the only way to address crime. We made a decision, by the year 2019, we had 180,000 fewer arrests than in the last year of Mayor Bloomberg. So, we figured that very systematically that not only could we keep the city safe, but we could reduce mass incarceration, which needed desperately to be done. That is one of the things that worked. COVID threw everything off, radically. What the Commissioner just talked about, there's no parallel in any other agency of even after the pain and the challenges of COVID, workers not coming to work in this fashion. We have now sent a very strong message. And I've talked to Chief Stukes, who's been here for decades, helping to provide leadership – the workers who are doing the right thing, that's the vast majority who are standing by each other, they are getting additional help, additional incentives. The ones who are not showing up are being suspended. And that message has been made very clear now, and we are seeing more and more workers who hadn't come to work now show up. I can take a few more. Who hasn't gone? Who hasn't gone?  
  
Question: [Inaudible] 
  
Mayor: Yeah, I mean, look, we know that every day is different, and it does, in part, depend on what happened out on the streets that night and how many arrests there were. But what I saw was intake facilities that had been now spaced out, cleaned up. We've got a lot more work to do, but we also – the question is not just the proximity, how fast people move through. I just asked the Chief and his team, the average last few days have been around 10 hours for the entire intake process that had been over 24 hours a few weeks ago too often. So, that's the kind of thing that we fixed that makes a real impact on people's lives. Anyone who has not gone? Has not gone?  
  
Question: [Inaudible]
  
Mayor: I did not, and I want to be very straightforward about that. My mission today was to talk about the work being done, what's needed next. To ask the experts, what is the additional next steps? What investments we have to make quickly and urgently. Last call, anyone who hasn’t gone? Hasn't gone? Gloria, did you go or not? I cannot remember. You went, okay. Anyone who hasn't gone.  
  
Question: Mayor, you didn’t answer the first part of my question – 
  
Mayor: Please – 
  
Question: What was the most upsetting thing you saw today?  
  
Mayor: I – again, guys, I'm trying to explain to you the whole thing upsets me. I'm not going to bring it down to one thing. The whole situation must be profoundly changed. We need to get off Rikers Island. Last one, Gloria. Go ahead.  
  
Question: How are you [inaudible] plenty of officers for the amount of detainees that are here. So how do you justify hiring 600 more? And the amount of money that costs to keep a person here for as long as we know some people have been and on that same thread, in terms of your 6A powers –  
  
Mayor: Right.  
  
Question: Keep saying it's a small number of people. We know that the city has compiled the list and you have cited –  
  
Mayor: Right. Okay, I'm going to lose all your items in a second. Just get to – help me with the punchline.  
  
Question: There's no evidence that the last time you released people under 6A, that those people reoffended [inaudible] –   
  
Mayor: We – I'm going to talk to you about 6A and where you started again was –   
  
Question: How do you even justify –   
  
Mayor: Additional hiring. Okay, the – we're hiring more because now we are calling into question on the officers we have. Folks need to understand that they have to come to work, they have to support each other, or they're not going to be a part of this organization anymore. We're bringing in additional officers to make sure that we will have enough under any situation. In terms of 6A, we're going to literally announce the exact number as soon as we have it. But I'm telling you right now, it's not going to be a large number. It is a different environment now than when we were dealing with COVID in the worst of the COVID crisis in the spring of 2020. So, we're going to balance public safety with what we have to do here. But the bottom line is, more and more officers are coming back to work. That's going to allow us to do a lot more here. We're making investments. This is going to take some real work. I couldn't be blunter about this, but I also see, and I'm going over the numbers with these folks every single day, and I want to give this team credit, this is a very difficult circumstance, but they are making changes rapidly, and that's how we address this situation. Thank you.  

  
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