By C1 Staff
NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has pushed back its timeline to install cameras throughout the Rikers Correctional Facility complex.
Capital New York reports that the new video system will not be installed until February 2018, rather than the initially unveiled 18 months.
After an initial review, approximately 1,000 additional cameras were found to be in need of replacing. The department then decided on a “phased process of installation by facility” rather than installing all the cameras at once.
By the end of 2016, cameras would be installed for “100 percent coverage” of the facilities’ young adult population, according to Peter Thorne, a spokesman for the DOCCS.
In November 2014, DOCCS commissioner Joseph Ponte announced plans to install more than 7,800 cameras throughout the facility.
The lack of cameras was specifically noted in a DOJ report, which noted that officers often committed acts of violence against inmates in areas without cameras which contributed to a “deep-seated culture of violence” inside the facility.