DOI REPORT FINDS SERIOUS SECURITY LAPSES AT TWO CORRECTION DEPARTMENT FACILITIES ALLOWING WEAPONS AND DRUGS INTO THE FACILITIES

DOI found same failures in 2014 and recommended DOC make changes, which the agency never adopted

  Mark G. Peters, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation (“DOI”), released a Report today on security lapses at the entrances of two City Department of Correction (“DOC”) detention facilities – one in Manhattan and the second in Brooklyn – exposing serious vulnerabilities in DOC’s security operations. The Report, based on recent undercover operations, documents the continued existence of security failures that were first uncovered during a similar DOI investigation in 2014 but were never addressed by DOC. In fact, some of the recommendations in today’s Report were ones made to DOC in 2014, and if properly implemented would have prevented DOI’s undercover investigator from entering the facilities with contraband. As a result of this new Report, DOC has now agreed to adopt DOI’s recommendations to strengthen its screening protocols and establish a dedicated, independent unit of specially trained officers to provide screening at DOC’s front gates. Importantly, DOI’s investigation revealed that certain security issues are as prevalent at the City’s localized borough facilities as at Rikers, demonstrating that a number of previously documented concerns at Rikers are equally problematic at smaller, community-based jails.

  In September 2017, a DOI undercover investigator posed as a Correction Officer and successfully smuggled in two scalpel blades, with handles and blade covers; 26.8 grams of marijuana; and five strips of suboxone, a prescription opiate substitute similar to methadone, into the Manhattan Detention Center (“MDC”) and Brooklyn Detention Center (“BKDC”). The undercover investigator passed all screening checkpoints at both facilities without being manually searched, even when magnetometers confirmed a metallic presence. At MDC, the correction officer stationed at the front desk did not acknowledge the alert on the magnetometer, did not ask the investigator to pass through again, and did not stop or search the investigator, either manually or with a transfrisker wand, before allowing him through security. DOI’s undercover investigator also smuggled contraband into the detention center from the New York County Criminal Court entrance, though again, he triggered the magnetometer. Later that same day, the undercover investigator also entered BKDC’s front gate without being stopped or searched, despite triggering the magnetometer once again, this time with his belt and shield still on and his keys in hand. Only one correction officer inquired as to whether the undercover investigator was carrying contraband, but accepted the investigator’s answer without conducting a physical search.

  Today’s Report highlights DOI’s monitoring of the City’s jails since 2014, which has led to more than twodozen arrests of DOC employees on contraband smuggling charges. This Report is a follow-up investigation to DOI’s November 2014 Report that exposed security breakdowns at the entrances of Rikers Island jail facilities and enabled an undercover DOI investigator to smuggle in dangerous contraband, including narcotics and weapons, into six out of the six jails entered. DOI also found through its investigation that DOC had not fully implemented DOI’s essential recommendations made in 2014 to address these problems. As a result, DOI has re-issued these recommendations along with several additional recommendations, including the creation of a dedicated, independent unit to handle DOC’s front-gate entrance screening. 

 The recommendations being re-issued from DOI’s 2014 investigation are the following: placing drugdetecting dogs at the staff entrance gates to screen correction officers entering facilities for drugs, especially during tour changes; eliminating unnecessary pockets on the correction officers’ uniforms, including those on cargo pants; and locating DOC staff members’ personal lockers outside the front-gate entrances.

 DOI has also issued two new recommendations based on this investigation, including: 

 DOC should create a dedicated, independent unit specially trained in the security and screening for correctional institutions and with in-depth knowledge of the policies, procedures, and operations of DOC’s front-gate entrances. The current practices of using correction officers with jail assignments means these DOC staff members are asked to oversee the same correction officers they must depend on to protect them inside the jail housing areas. A specialized unit, dedicated to security, will eliminate this conflict. DOC informed DOI that it has undertaken efforts to train staff in front-gate security. 

 The court-side entrance of MDC must be fully equipped with adequate personnel, surveillance cameras and x-ray machines, in addition to magnetom.

DOC has informed DOI that it will accept these recommendations. DOI will continue to monitor the implementation of these recommendations and issues of contraband screening at DOC facilities.