DOC Commissioner Louis Molina blames de Blasio administration for problems at Rikers Island
NEW YORK -- Just a day after a federal judge gave the Adams administration more time to fix the problems on Rikers Island, CBS2 questioned the city correction commissioner to find out how he's going to fix things.
He sat down with political reporter Marcia Kramer for a recording of CBS2's Sunday talk show "The Point."
In an administration that rarely blames problems on others, there was a stunning charge from correction commissioner Louis Molina about the problems at Rikers Island: blame Bill de Blasio.
"The former administration made some decisions that critically hurt the agency, just to be quite frank," Molina said.
"Like what? Like what hurt the agency?" Kramer asked.
"They attrited over 2,000 officers out of the department because they wanted a smaller staffing ratio footprint for the new borough-based jails," Molina said. "The other area is that during the pandemic, programming was stopped, workforce development program was stopped, you know. When you run a hospital, you don't say only the doctors come to work and all the nurses, everything, the support staff stays home."
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Appearing on "The Point," Molina talks about the steps he's taking to fix things, things he traces back to decisions made as early as 2015.
"We have significantly reduced staff shortages in the department. We have re-instituted programming for staff. We have put in a violence reduction plan that has affected our young adult facility in very, very positive ways to bring it to a level of calm that it hasn't had for some years," he said.
Molina also spoke about hiring wardens from outside the department, stopping the flow of drugs and weapons into Rikers and disciplining officers who hurt inmates.
You can watch the entire interview on "The Point with Marcia Kramer" on CBS2 at 11:30 a.m. Sunday.
