By C1 Staff
NEW YORK — In a letter to the New York Daily Times, the president of the Corrections Officer’s Benevolent Association laid out reasons as to why violence against correctional officers is on the rise and how it could be fixed.
With violence on officers up 250 percent since 2011, Norman Seabrook urged Mayor Bill de Blasio and Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte to consider leveraging funds and time toward protecting the safety of corrections officers.
“Yet the Mayor’s much-publicized $125.4 million, 14-point plan only addresses inmate-on-inmate violence,” he wrote. “What about the safety and wellbeing of taxpaying correction officers who are actually charged with keeping the peace?”
Seabrook blamed a spike of mentally ill inmates, a lack of solitary confinement, prison gangs and dilapidated facility structures as reasons for the current problems at Rikers Island Correctional Facility.
He also said officers don’t receive enough training or equipment to ensure their own safety and the ability to perform their job duties.
“CO’s get no self-defense training. None. Too often, using words to de-escalate a situation with violent inmates just does not suffice,” he wrote. “Our members do not carry nightsticks or tasers. We are risking serious injury by not properly preparing our officers.
“We also do not get adequate training to deal with the mentally ill.”
Seabrook again urged the mayor and the commissioner to bring corrections officers into the conversation.
“When corrections officers report for work, they are keeping New Yorkers safe and putting their own lives on the line. Right now, we are doing it without the full support of our city’s leadership.”