JAILS: Bitter Outbreak on Rikers Island

A jail official on his rounds spotted the ominous signs around 9 p.m. in cell block 7: jagged tiles — handy for weapons — missing from a bathroom wall and menacing whispering between cells. Then, recalls another official, Deputy Assistant Warden Roy Caldwood: “All hell broke loose.”

Last week at New York City’s 42-year-old House of Detention for Men on Rikers Island, about 1,500 inmates, who were out on the catwalks for free time, swarmed in every direction, some passing through holes gouged between the asphalt walls of the cell blocks. Prisoners carried broken pipes, broomsticks and rocks. A few quickly seized five guards as hostages. The inmates, more than 80% of whom are black or Puerto Rican, rapidly gained control of six of the eight cell blocks, but guards thwarted a takeover of cell block 6 by pitching tear-gas into a 3-ft.-wide hole in a wall, stopping prisoners from a neighboring cell from passing through.

Eerie Mist. Within several hours some 500 police and extra guards were rushed to the jail. Commissioner of Correction Benjamin J. Malcolm and Peter Tufo, the unpaid head of the city’s Board of Correction, arrived and bravely agreed to enter one of the cell blocks held by the rebels in order to negotiate. Donning gas masks, the two men crawled through the hole in cell block 6 into an eerie tear-gas mist. They then asked the tense inmates for “delegates.” Seven leaders — who carried homemade shivs and wore blankets and towels around their heads as a protection against the gas — returned with them for talks in the police-held cells.

They called for total amnesty and an end to overcrowding and other grievances. Ultimately, Bronx District Attorney Mario Merola appeared and agreed not to press any charges against the inmates — in exchange for the release of the hostages. The amnesty was a virtually unprecedented action in prison insurrections. Commissioner Malcolm also promised to use “all the resources” of the Correction Department to solve the problems at Rikers Island’s House of Detention for Men.

All the resources may never be enough. Ironically, a court decision aimed at improving conditions in local jails probably contributed to last week’s explosion. Early in 1974 Judge Morris Lasker ruled that the wretched conditions at Manhattan’s House of Detention for Men — called The Tombs — violated the constitutional rights of prisoners. New York City could not afford to improve the jail and so closed it down, sending some 500 street-wise inmates to the Rikers’ lockup. These transfers and others swelled Rikers’ population from 1,036 to 1,879. Today each block holds up to 325 inmates, 85 more than “capacity.” So far this year, the budget-pinched Correction Department has laid off 654 employees, dangerously thinning the guards at Rikers from five to four per cell block.

Outnumbered and long unarmed — because prisoners might grab an officer’s gun — the guards try to achieve a rapport with the inmates. Explained one guard to TIME’s New York bureau chief Laurence Barrett: “Look, there are four of us to a cell block and maybe 300 of them.” Added one prisoner, who is charged with armed robbery: “Some of the guards are O.K. A lot of them are [black] brothers, so the race trouble is more between the guys than the guards.” Even so, the assaults on officers increased from three in the first quarter of 1974 to 24 in the same period this year.

Hardened activist prisoners have long agitated for change. The day before the outbreak, one protested cold meals at dinnertime by kicking over an electric cart. Others complained of poor medical attention, lack of privacy, the theft of property by other inmates, lack of basic maintenance in toilets and cells. These problems stemmed, in part, from the elimination of civilian aides who handled services for the prisoners. Still most veteran inmates consider the detention center to have generally better prison programs than was true 20 years ago. The fundamental gripe of inmates is the agonizing slowness of the criminal system that keeps poor prisoners, who cannot afford bail, awaiting trials and sentencing doubled-up for months in detention cells designed for single occupancy. This year twelve prisoners have escaped (three are still unaccounted for), and three have committed suicide. Says Caldwood: “Most of the inmates’ gripes are legitimate. That’s the sad part.”

More Staff. As long as New York City’s fiscal crunch continues, there is little chance for real change at the detention center. Some guards staged a brief walkout to protest amnesty for prisoners and the lack of staff. They won Mayor Abraham Beame’s pledge to rehire 69 laid-off guards. At week’s end, officials transferred 350 prisoners to other New York jails. D.A. Merola promised to open up a court branch at Rikers to speed up trials. But these measures may have limited effect. As one guard summed up, “The inmates want open visiting. That means security problems, and you need more staff. They want better medical care, you need more staff. Better food, more staff. But the city’s in a budget crisis, right?”