At a press conference on Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio threatened 30-day suspensions for correction officers who needlessly call out sick or simply fail to show up to work without explanation. 

“We understand it’s tough work and a tough environment. But folks not showing up for work is not acceptable,” de Blasio said. “When any officer doesn’t show up for work, they actually put every other officer in danger.”

The warning was one plank of the mayor’s new five point plan to address ongoing chaos at Rikers Island, which has seen a spike in self-harm and violence as thousands of correction officers have called out sick or ducked work in recent months, even as the jail population has surged.

In response to the mayor’s announcement, the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association called de Blasio a “modern day dictator” and demanded his immediate resignation. 

“Mayor de Blasio’s latest reckless and knee jerk solution to the crisis he has created for the past eight years only reaffirms why he is unfit for office and for the sake of saving the thousands of lives at Rikers Island, he must resign immediately,” said Benny Boscio Jr., the union’s president. “He has not visited Rikers in over four years and he has not witnessed first-hand the severity of the damage his policies have created which our officers must endure every day.” 

In addition to the suspension threat, de Blasio announced emergency contracting for broken doors and cleaning, expanded medical evaluation capacity, new medical clinics to speed up the jail intake process, and the deployment of more NYPD officers into the courts to free up jail guards who are needed at Rikers Island.

As of September 6th, nearly a third of the Department of Correction’s 8,400 uniformed staff were not available to work with detainees, leaving their colleagues struggling to complete basic functions like food delivery and escorts to housing units and medical clinics.

Last month, the daily average of correction officers calling out sick was 1,416, more than double the average in the same period last year. This August also saw a daily average of 93 officers going AWOL, three times that of the same month in 2020.

In recent months, the correction officers’ union has called on the city to hire more guards to deal with the absenteeism crisis and argued its members should not be forced to work triple shifts. 

In response to those demands, the city plans to train 400 new recruits and convince more retired guards to come back on the job.

Decarceration activists have criticized these initiatives, noting that the agency has a relatively high staff to detainee ratio compared to other jail systems across the country, even after factoring in the wave of absenteeism. 

At a press conference outside Rikers Island on Monday, socialist and progressive Democratic lawmakers argued that the best path forward is to shrink the jail population. Flanked by public defenders, the elected officials called on district attorneys and judges to release more people pre-trial. 

They also want de Blasio to grant work releases for detainees serving misdemeanor sentences in jail, and urge Governor Kathy Hochul to sign the Less Is More Act which would limit the number of people sent to jail as they await hearings for technical parole violations. 

In a statement following the mayor’s press conference, Tina Luongo, attorney-in-charge of The Legal Aid Society’s criminal defense practice, criticized the mayor for failing to approve work releases, which could get about 250 people out of city jails. 

“It is simply unconscionable and unworkable that significant and immediate steps to decarcerate Rikers Island and other local jails are not a fundamental part of this plan,” Luongo said. “Fixing this multi-layered crisis will take time - time that people whose lives are in jeopardy from dangerous and uncontrolled conditions do not have.”

According to city data compiled by the Vera Institute, the vast majority of the jails' 6,000-plus detainees are being detained as they await trial, mostly for violent felony charges.

George Joseph is a reporter with the WNYC/Gothamist Race & Justice Unit. You can send him tips on Facebook, Twitter @georgejoseph94, Instagram @georgejoseph81, and at [email protected]. His phone and encrypted Signal app number is 929-486-4865.