Inside Rikers Island - Part 3
A Conversation With Patrick Ferraiuolo
Part three of an interview with Patrick Ferraiuolo. Patrick is an NYC Department of Corrections Captain and the President of the Corrections Captain Association. To read part one, click here.
Jason: Tell me about when Deblasio appointed Commissioner Schiraldi?
Pat: Schiraldi was the first commissioner ever to not call the union leaders to introduce himself. After three weeks of not hearing a single word from him, I called him to extend the olive branch myself. I introduced him to my board (who still works in the facilities by the way) and said to him “there isn’t a single person on this board who doesn’t have 35+ years on the job.” I told him we could fix this together and improve the morale, but he wanted to do things his way.
Thankfully when Molina took over, he had the exact same ideas we had and we were able to get right to it and work together. Not a day goes by that we don’t speak about how to make Rikers Island a better place.
Jason: What are some of the wildest theories that get thrown around about why we need to close Rikers Island?
Pat: The first crazy idea was that we should close Rikers Island so we could expand the runways at LaGuardia airport, which is less than half a mile away. Next was the green energy farm that AOC’s idea, then someone else wanted to repurpose it for subsidized housing. My personal opinion is that whichever way you cut it, there are billions of dollars on the table, which is why DeBlasio always wanted to close Rikers Island and get his cut.
It’s 413 acres of NYC waterfront property. The neglect of Rikers Island was deliberate. One time I had a captain die in a house fire with her two children and Deblasio didn’t even come to the funeral. Deblasio visited Rikers less than six times during his two terms as Mayor. He had no interest in how Rikers was structured or how it ran, whatsoever.
Jason: Tell me how double and triple shifts became a thing of normalcy
Pat: Sure, double shifts were always in existence. It’s not structured like the police department. When a corrections officer calls out sick, those posts absolutely have to be filled. These are security posts in housing areas. Years ago, the Wittenberg decision labeled 98% of my area’s security posts that could not be closed under any circumstances. Double shifts always existed in the department of corrections. It wasn’t every day. The average amount of days for a C.O. are currently set for them to work 246 days a year.
So let’s talk triple shifts. That’s the real problem. How did that happen? The answer is easy: Attrition. Assaults on staff are through the roof at the time, which led to more people calling out sick. A lot were calling out because of COVID, some caught it, and some were scared of it.
Things got so bad during the Deblasio administration that they were writing up Corrections Officers and Captains for using force, flagging them for a minor mistake or incomplete detail on a report, there was no support whatsoever. Even when the incident was on tape and the officer was being viciously assaulted, if that officer returned a punch back he’d be suspended for 30 days.
The morale got so bad that nobody wanted to come to work.
Getting back to how many facilities are open, right now there are about eight jails, at some times we had thirteen. What was happening was there would be a housing area with 4-5 inmates in it, and the Deblasio administration refused to consolidate the inmates during COVID. Keeping them spread out called for more corrections officers, not less. All of these factors combined led to triple shifts. A judge ordered no more triple shifts but it went by the wayside. Some people even did quadruple tours. So the question becomes how do you expect someone to go back to work after doing a triple or quadruple shift? You can’t. There’s actually a rule in place where if someone does a double shift there needs to be a 10-hour gap before their next shift begins. But with a double or a triple shift, a corrections officer was so burnt out that they often would need 2 days to recover.
Jason: If you could do whatever you want, what actions would you take to correct Rikers island immediately?
Pat: We currently have eight facilities open at the moment. Immediately I would completely close them up, remove everyone, hire crews to paint clean, wax, do repairs, and get the cleanliness up to standards.
Then the most important part: you have to fully staff that facility. Right now we are not really fully staffed and it’s a huge problem.
The commissioner is doing the best he can, but one of his biggest problems is temporary duty assignments (TDYs). Unfortunately, there’s a lot of nepotism in the Department Of Corrections and people use TDYs to get their friends out of facilities and hook them up with desk jobs. Out of 800 captains, I had almost 100 captains that were pulled out of facilities via TDYs. I hate to say it, but you have to put all these staff members back where they are most needed: in the jails.
I’d clean up the facilities, fully staff them, and bring back the programs that worked in the past. I know nobody wants to hear this next part, but jails do not work without punitive segregation. You have to seperate the good from the bad.
Those old programs that incentivized good behavior were key in keeping violence down, I’ve always been open to the idea of adding more programs. We even discussed the idea of starting a runners club for young adults on Rikers Island. People thought I was kidding when I suggested it, what’s wrong with that? These guys are gonna get out one day, so why not help them find a healthy hobby like jogging? Also, I’ve always liked the idea of building a fishing pier on Rikers Island. Some of these kids didnt have dads and never held a fishing pole in their life. It would bring them some joy and do them some good. These are things that Rikers Island has the potential of becoming. There was actually an era on Rikers island that had huge vegetable gardens. Inmates were planting vegetables and eating their own crops. There’s been many eras and many successful programs, but of course, they never get mentioned.
Fixing Rikers Island overnight is impossible, but you certainly start with those steps.
Jason: What would you do with the current facilities there that aren’t up to par?
Pat: Demolish them and build state-of-the-art facilities in their place. That’s obviously the long-term answer. Not only would it be easier to build the new facilities on the Island without interfering with four separate neighborhoods, but I also bet it would be cheaper as well. As far as codes and everything else is concerned, we own the land already. The cost of land right now is at an all-time high, as is construction, and lumber.
Even picking up trash at borough-based facilities is gonna be an enormous issue. The amount of trash that comes out of a facility in one day is so much more than anyone would ever guess. I was an environment caption in Manhattan for 12 years, trust me, It’s a lot of work. Feeding them will be a whole nother issue. Feeding inmates on Rikers Island works like a charm in the current campus-style setting, but it’s gonna be a huge headache having to navigate all those inmates through a skyscraper to eat three meals a day.
Jason: What would you consider to be an extra long stay on Rikers?
Pat: A few years
Jason: Do you think it would be a disaster for someone to spend a couple of years inside a skyscraper?
Pat: Of course. It’s a recipe for disaster. And I know doing that time on Rikers Island isn’t a vacation either, but at least you have the yards. Every day people can go outside, get some fresh air, play basketball, or go for a jog. On a nice summer day, they can crack a window open and get a breeze while laying in their rooms. You can’t do that in the borough-based facilities. Those buildings are cell-based designs. At least half of the structures in Rikers are dormitory settings where inmates are not enclosed and stuck in a cell all day long. Campus-style facilities have major advantages over a skyscraper full of cells.
Also, people keep forgetting that Rikers Island already works in conjunction with borough-based facilities right now, but you can’t just have those facilities alone. Getting inmates to trials every day is a big part of the job, but one that we never had an issue with. Even back when there were 22,000 inmates we never really had a problem transporting inmates to trial. That being said, a lot of this stuff could be done on zoom nowadays to make everyone’s lives easier. We did a lot of zoom trials during COVID, it worked just fine. We learned a lot during covid.
Jason: Anything else you’d like to say before we wrap things up?
Pat: Let’s say I got a guy who just finished his time, and is about to be released from the D.O.C. but he has a warrant in another country. Even if I have an order from a judge in writing that says “Do not release, call ICE,” I cannot call ICE because New York is a sanctuary city which means our policy is to limit cooperation with ICE regarding any deportations. How is this justice? And how are we the bad guy in this story?
Welcome to our broken criminal justice system, this is the type of lunacy we deal with every day.