The mayor threatened to suspend for 30 days without pay correctional officers who call out of work without a reason
Nurses protesting against jail conditions at the entrance to the Rikers Island correctional facility. Photo: JUSTIN LANE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock After 24-year-old Esias Johnson died in his cell at Rikers Island last week — the tenth inmate to die this year in the city’s notorious island jail — Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new five-point plan to address the crisis, blaming it in large part on droves of corrections officers who haven’t been showing up to work.
De Blasio’s plan also includes shifting NYPD officers to operate courts so that Department of Correction staff can be on-duty at Rikers and speeding intake to reduce crowding in the notoriously packed jail, with a goal of “moving people through the intake process in 24 hours or fewer.” De Blasio also called on Governor Kathy Hochul to sign the Less Is More Act, which would limit incarceration for technical and non-criminal parole violations.