Triple shifts amid a growing jail population contribute to “inhumane conditions’ faced by city Department of Correction employees, the union that represents correction officers alleged in a lawsuit Friday.
The Correction Benevolent Officers’ Association suit in Queens Supreme Court claims the Department of Correction is breaking state law by allowing the workplace woes to to fester.
In addition to allegations of back-breaking hours, correction officers say they’ve been denied access to water, masks and gloves to protect against COVID-19, and medical attention.
“In my 22 years working in the New York City Department of Correction, I have never seen such deplorable working conditions for our members-conditions that have been made even worse by the continued indifference of the top brass at our agency,” COBA President Benny Boscio Jr. said in a statement.
An acute staffing shortage is a problem, the union says. By its figures, in July 2020, the department employed 8,269 officers. By June 2021, that number had dropped to 7,651 — a decline of just over 7%.
DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi, who announced a post-pandemic recovery plan on Friday, said a central cause of the heavier workload is a high incidence of officers either out sick or on medical monitoring which precludes them from working in detainee areas.
Roughly 2,900 correction officers fell in one of those two categories on July 15, he said. In addition, in the month of June, there were 2,757 instances of officers listed as AWOL — or those who didn’t show up for work, he said.
Meanwhile, the number of detainees swelled by 45% from July 2020 to June 2021 — from 3,975 to 5,800 — because of court backlogs caused by the COVID pandemic and a rising number of arrests.
“The good news is that the courts, probation, correction are all ramping up again, and we’re hoping it [the population increase] will be short-lived,” Schiraldi said.
Schiraldi said he wants to end the triple shifts as soon as possible — and to provide catered meals and transport home for officers who pull the extra-long tours..
He also hopes fewer officers will be listed as out sick, on medical monitoring, or AWOL.
“We need folks to come back to work so their colleagues aren’t working triples,” Schiraldi said — noting that the triple shifts put those working them at greater safety risk.
“If people come back to work, safety increases and frustration and low morale decreases,” Schiraldi told the Daily News.
The commissioner’s post-pandemic recovery plan is aimed at improving working conditions in the jails.
Schiraldi’s initiative includes breaking up gang housing. The department has been jailing alleged gang members with other members of the same gang, which the union says in its lawsuit is counter to policy and leads to more violence.
Schiraldi’s plan also includes more aggressive pursuit of criminal charges against violent prisoners and fixing damaged jailhouse locks.
Schiraldi also plans to roll out a young adult task force, which will address violence and other issues among that jail population. He plans special training for officers who work with younger detainees.
“There’s a lot of pent-up frustration about a lot of legitimate complaints that were exacerbated by the pandemic,” Schiraldi said.
“This is my initial effort to deal with it in a comprehensive manner. There’s a really complicated set of issues involved here: the low morale and the violence. You have to interrupt that vicious cycle.”
“It all hinges on staff coming in, and this is an attempt to do that,” he said. “We can do all those things, and then everybody’s life is going to be better.”