Probe Finds Porous Security, Rampant Smuggling At Rikers Island
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- New York City jail officials announced Thursday that they plan tighter screening of guards and other employees, after a city investigation found they were easily able to smuggle vodka, heroin, marijuana and razor blades into Rikers Island in exchange for hundreds of dollars in "courier'' fees from inmates.
As CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported, the city Department of Investigation said the security checkpoints used by correction officers to get to work at the Rikers Island jail facilities have more holes than a sieve.
The report found one undercover investigator posing as a guard was able to smuggle in more than $22,000 worth of contraband -- including booze, heroin, marijuana, pills and a razor blade -- in six separate attempts at six different Rikers jails.
"Had that person not been an undercover officer, but a corrupt C.O., he would have brought in $120,000 worth of narcotics and contraband and would have earned close to $20,000 in fees," said DOI Commissioner Mark Peters. "That's a pretty good take for a couple of days."
Probe Finds Porous Security, Rampant Smuggling At Rikers Island
The DOI report found that guards can earn between $600 and $3,000 per trip by acting as couriers for inmates.
Peters acted after viewing hundreds of hours of surveillance video that showed the lax security procedures – proving it was easy to smuggle contraband.
"People would not, in fact, put their lunch or gym bags through the machines, but would them on top of the machines," Peters said. "They would go through the magnetometer, the magnetometer would go off, and corrections officers would say, 'Oh, well, that's just my belt buckle.' And so they'd wand the belt buckle and then let the person through without checking anyplace else."
The report comes after a series of investigations by the anti-corruption agency -- which this year alone resulted in charges against 10 jail guards, 30 inmate arrests and multiple jail sweeps. Guards were accused of smuggling contraband into lockups to inmates for courier fees that averaged about $600. In one case from last year, a guard got $2,000 for smuggling in 150 grams of marijuana.
WEB EXTRA: Read The Full Report (pdf)
One jail nurse told investigators he sneaked clear alcohol such as vodka in Poland Spring water bottles while darker liquor could be put into Snapple iced tea bottles, neither of which would be checked by guards.
Peters and Department of Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte said some of the recommended reforms already are being implemented, such as mandating that supervisors oversee searches at shift changes and requiring that food go through the X-ray machines in clear containers.
There are also further security plans for the future.
"We're going to add a canine unit -- drug-sniffing dogs -- to our investigative division, so as they do investigations and security checks at the front gate, they will have canines they can use," Ponte said.
Other recommendations in the report included turning over screening to specially trained security staff and eliminating extraneous pockets from uniform pants.
The Department of Correction is also considering getting the kind of enhanced screening equipment used at airports.
Probe Finds Porous Security, Rampant Smuggling At Rikers Island
But training security staff, hiring more canine units and implementing search protocols up to Transportation Security Administration standards could take up to six months to fully implement, Peters said.
In a statement, Ponte said he had "zero tolerance for anyone, including staff, bringing contraband into DOC facilities.'' Guards who get caught are arrested and criminal investigators are called. The department can then initiate the administrative process of firing them.
"It's true that this report provides hard and detailed evidence of smuggling,'' Peters said. "But it also provides DOC a set of reforms that they've already started to put in motion.''
The investigation comes following continued scrutiny of the nation's second-largest jail system, where inmate violence has steadily surged in tandem with use-of-force by jail guards.
A representative of Mayor Bill de Blasio's office said most of the problems uncovered by the probe pre-date his administration, but de Blasio has vowed to reform the troubled jail system.
"It's going to take a lot of work to fix," de Blasio said in September. "It's a very bad situation."
Last week, as The Associated Press first reported, the department's top uniformed officer announced that he would resign by the end of the year following disclosures of violence and other problems at Rikers. Two other officials also have announced they'll retire as jail officials redesign the department's management structure.
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