Touting a $1.4 billion plan to fill 1,300 empty positions and pay staff overtime, Department of Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards said improving jail safety requires more resources at a City Council budget hearing on Tuesday. Jail reform advocates said that’s the wrong path for the agency to take.
That’s because the agency is poised to significantly downsize when Rikers Island closes and the department moves to a borough-based jail system, a shift likely to take place in the early or mid-2030s, advocates say. Estimates show the new jails — which will incarcerate just about half of the current population on Rikers — will require only 3,240 officers, about a third of the agency’s total allowance and roughly half of its current headcount of about 7,200.
