Except in rare emergency situations, New York City corrections officers will no longer be able to use pepper spray to defend themselves or inmates at Rikers Island or other New York City jails. “reckless” A new bill is being considered by the City Council.
A bill from far-left Democrat Rep. Sandy Nurse would require corrections officers to get permission from patrol commanders before using a “high-strength oleoresin capsaicin spray” on uncontrollable detainees.
A far-left Brooklyn politician who chairs the Criminal Justice Committee quietly introduced the bill at Thursday’s City Council meeting, adding it to the agenda but not for debate.
Queens City Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán, a democratic socialist, signed on as a co-sponsor.
If the bill passes, pepper spray can only be used in “emergency situations where delay in use would create an immediate risk of death or serious injury or would seriously threaten the safety or security of a facility.”
And that puts both corrections officers and inmates at risk, said Benny Bosio, president of the city’s corrections officers union.
“The use of chemical agents is less likely to result in serious injury to prisoners or officers than the use of physical force,” he told the Post.
“We invite Councilman Nurse and the other City Council members who support this reckless bill to spend a full day with us in a holding area that houses gang-affiliated inmates and ask them if they still believe officers’ hands should be tied when using chemical agents.”
Boscio also spoke at a Manhattan politician’s Sept. 28, 2022, Criminal Justice Committee hearing, Female prison officer shares harrowing testimony I was sexually assaulted.
“Mr. Nurse must be well aware that chemical agents are only used in emergency situations and that they must be used immediately to save the life of someone under attack by a violent inmate inside the prison,” Bosio said.
Nurse’s bill is the latest move by the Legislature’s left-leaning majority to soften treatment of detainees in local jails, while a federal judge is considering whether the city’s long-standing failure to curb violence at Rikers Island justifies the creation of an independent agency, or “trustee,” to run the jail.
The Assembly approved a bill in December that would have severely restricted solitary confinement in prisons, but Mayor Eric Adams, a moderate Democrat, signed an emergency executive order last month blocking key parts of the plan just hours before the bill was set to take effect.
“[Nurse’s] “I’m confident this bill will pass the City Council because it will only put corrections officers at risk,” City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) joked.
Nurse did not return messages, but he introduced the bill six months after the city’s Jail Oversight Board released its report. Scathing report criticizes New York City Department of Corrections due to staff’s “excessive reliance on chemicals.”
The Board of Corrections found that there were 2,972 pepper spray “incidents” in city jails in the first 10 months of 2023, a nearly 50% increase over the same period in 2018.
The committee also cited 24 cases in October of corrections officers using pepper spray on mentally ill detainees without consulting with mental health staff as required.
Also in the same month, eight incidents were reported in which officers used pepper spray on detainees attempting to hang themselves, rather than cutting or removing ropes or other “restraints.”
The DOC did not respond, and the mayor’s office said it was reviewing the bill.
