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Rikers Visitors to Face Enhanced Screenings and Limited Hugs Under Plan

By Jeff Mays | March 13, 2015 9:33am
 Visitors to Rikers Island will be screened and will no longer be able to have close extended physical contact with inmates under a proposal announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio Thursday to reduce violence at the troubled jail by stopping the flow of weapons and drugs.
Rikers Visitation Policy
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RIKERS ISLAND — Visitors to Rikers Island will be screened with body scanners and will no longer be able to have close extended physical contact with inmates under a proposal announced Thursday by Mayor Bill de Blasio to reduce violence at the troubled jail.

Currently, anyone can visit inmates at Rikers, including gang members and people intent on passing drugs, messages and weapons, according to de Blasio.

"Right now, a gang member who is not a family member can visit his fellow gang member," said de Blasio. "It's just clear as day why we need stricter rules."

Under the new policy, visitors will be allowed only a brief hug at the start and finish of visits and will be separated from the inmates by an 8-inch piece of Plexiglas.

The Plexiglas, installed on top of the tables, is designed to deter people from passing contraband. Tables will also be taller in an effort to make it more difficult to pass drugs or weapons beneath the table,  Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte said.

Between Nov. 14 to Jan. 31, 10 weapons and 69 banned drugs were confiscated from 26 visitors trying to smuggle them into the jail.

Drug-sniffing dogs will also be used more often, officials said, in an effort to stop the flow of contraband brought into Rikers Island by staffers, several of whom have been arrested in recent years for smuggling.

By December, visitors will also find enhanced TSA-style search methods and body scanners at building entrances, de Blasio said. Visitors will face some sort of pre-registration, said Ponte who added that he wanted a "criminal background screening tool at the front door."

Other changes include an increase in security cameras and crisis-intervention teams to respond quickly to inmate-on-inmate violence.

"We know drugs become the basis for a violent culture. People are fighting over the drugs," de Blasio said. "If you cut off the weapons and you cut off the drugs that's how you change the culture profoundly."

The proposed changes to the visitor policy must be approved by the Board of Corrections.

Reducing the amount of violence at Rikers Island has proved difficult.

In spite of some attempts at reform, the number of violent incidents at Rikers has barely budged.

Slashings and stabbings have nearly doubled, climbing to 26 so far this year, compared to 14 during the same period last year. There were 745 inmate fights this year compared to 785 last year, a 5 percent decrease.

Use of force by correction officers has been steady, with 823 incidents this year compared to 822 incidents by this time last year. Assaults on staff members are up 13 percent, to 189 incidents, records show.

A series of damning reports detail the extent of violence and drug and weapon smuggling on Rikers.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has said that adolescents at the facility suffer a "systematic culture of violence" instituted by the guards who faced no discipline for the abuse they doled out.

A Department of Investigation report found that one of its undercover agents was able to smuggle weapons and drugs past checkpoints on six separate occasions.

A female correction officer was almost allegedly raped by an inmate earlier this month and had to be rescued with the help of other inmates. Rikers Island was also recently locked down for a day and a half after a spate of violent incidents led to a search for weapons.

"To say that much work remains to be done is a profound understatement," de Blasio said.

Taylor Pendergrass, a senior staff attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the changes need to be monitored closely to protect the rights of inmates and their families.

"Individuals' ability to visit with family members and others while awaiting their day in court is not only an important right, research overwhelmingly shows that maintaining those connections during incarceration improves safety and lowers recidivism," said Pendergrass.

"Overbroad restrictions on visitation would raise a number of concerns and could be counterproductive, and we will be watching the proposed changes very closely."

Ponte said he hopes to maintain supportive family visits because they are "extremely important for rehabilitation."

However, there may be circumstances where some family members, those with gang affiliations for example, will be prohibited from visiting Rikers, the commissioner acknowledged

 Other changes include a revised system of housing classification for inmates. On Thursday, the mayor visited one of the new enhanced supervision units at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center that will be used to house the most dangerous inmates.

De Blasio said 7 percent of the inmates drive the majority of violence at the facility. Seventeen inmates are currently under enhanced supervision, but Ponte said there is room for 250.

Inmates in enhanced supervision will also have more access to programs such as fatherhood and educational classes.

Ponte called the changes part of a "deep-dive, long-term fix."

"It's not going to be overnight," Ponte said.