RIKERS ISLAND — A plan by Mayor Bill de Blasio to supply corrections officers with stun guns and to employ new airport-style body scanners is facing criticism from advocates who say the devices will lead to more violence and that it's unfair that corrections officers will not be subject to the new screening.
The mayor, who choppered onto the island Thursday for his third visit since taking office, said that providing captains of the elite Emergency Services Unit with stun guns starting in a month will help to reduce violence.
The new airport-style body scanners will be able to see objects other than metal and will help to keep drugs and weapons off the island.
"Tasers will be a crucial tool that (Emergency Services Unit) officers can use to stop trends toward violence," said de Blasio who added that the scanners will allow weapons and drugs to be discovered "more consistently."
The stun guns will be used only during small scale incidents to help officers avoid physical confrontation and to deescalate potentially violent situations, officials said.
"These officers will never be deployed on their own," said Department of Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte.
But concerns about the use of stun guns on Rikers Island were immediate. A 2014 report from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that adolescent inmates suffered from a "systematic culture of violence" at the jail, which he called "broken."
Advocates such as the New York Civil Liberties Union and even the Corrections Officers' Benevolent Association are not in favor of the plan.
"Considering the decades long culture of violence on Rikers, much of it perpetuated by DOC staff, it’s appalling that Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Ponte would invest in tools that have been shown to cause death, rather than expanding deescalation training for Rikers staff," said Glenn Martin, a criminal justice reform advocate and founder of JustLeadershipUSA.
Brooklyn Defender Services Executive Director Lisa Schreibersdorf said the stun guns pose risk to individuals with heart problems.
"Multiple investigations have pointed to management issues and accountability as the primary drivers of violence at Rikers Island, neither of which will be resolved by introducing potentially lethal weapons into the city jails," said Schreibersdorf.
Ponte said there will be guidelines on the use of the stun guns. They will not be used on 16 and 17-year-old inmates or pregnant women. Use will be limited on mentally ill patients.
De Blasio questioned those who question the use of the stun guns.
"I am a progressive. I am a humanitarian. But the notion that advocates would not want us to first create a safe environment just makes no sense to me," said de Blasio. "If we don't have safety, nothing else is possible. There is a culture of violence that goes back decades that has to be disrupted."
The new scanners will be placed at the visitors processing center and at other key locations inside the jail. The scanners, which are similar to ones used at the airport, but less advanced, will be able to find banned items that current scanners cannot.
The city needs permission from the state to use the same scanners now used at airports but the new machinery will make a difference, said de Blasio. The discovery of contraband has already increased 63 percent this year without the new scanners.
Ponte said only visitors and inmates would be subject to the new body scanners.
"The majority of contraband does not come in through our staff," said Ponte.
There have been numerous incidents of corrections employees being involved in contraband smuggling at Rikers. In May, 17 people, including corrections officers, jail staff and inmates, were charged with smuggling everything from drugs to scalpels into the jail.
"The fact that these....scanners will be used on visitors and detainees, and not to root out corrupt guards, reminds New Yorkers of City Hall's continued pandering to special interest groups, in this case the Correction Officers Benevolent Association," Martin said.
Other changes in the works include the addition of 1,900 new officers between December and April of 2017. The new officers will help reduce the forced overtime facing corrections officers.
With the Rikers Island prison population at a decades-low count of around 7,000 people, there are questions about the need for more officers.
Ponte said the addition of more educational, recreational and clinical programs as part of city efforts to overhaul the troubled jail, call for more staff. The poor conditions at the outdated jail also mean that more personnel are needed.
"The driving of staff in any correctional system... is the physical plant, the buildings we have to work with," said Ponte who added that "most of the buildings" on Rikers are "well past" their prime.
Martin, who is a member of a panel created by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and led by Jonathan Lippman, the state's former chief judge, to study closing Rikers Island, said Ponte's remarks are proof of why the jail needs to be shuttered.
"The mayor should be focused on decreasing the population and shuttering the facility," said Glenn.
De Blasio has dismissed closing the jail as too expensive even though high level city officials have been studying the prospect for over a year.