- Among 555 New York City Police Department officers sworn in on Thursday, 42 are reportedly former correction officers, the New York Post reported.
- Low morale, poor salaries and working multiple shifts in a day are all factors leading to people switching to becoming New York City Police Department officers, according to the NYP.
- “Morale at the Department of Correction is very low,” said Vincent Schiraldi, the commissioner at the Department of Correction.
Dozens of people who recently started working at New York City’s prisons as correction officers have switched to joining the New York City Police Department, the New York Post reported Sunday.
Among the 555 New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers sworn in on Thursday, 42 are reportedly former correction officers, according to the NYP. Morale at the Department of Correction (DOC) is low because officers are receiving different amounts of pay compared to the NYPD and working multiple shifts in a day.
Correction officers are paid $43,333, which is slightly higher than NYPD cops, who earn $42,500 their first year, according to the city’s website. Their salaries become the same after five and a half years at $85,292.
“Police officers may potentially earn over $100,000 per year,” with overtime and other benefits, according to the city. Correction officers in comparison can earn $99,073 in salary without overtime and “specialty pay.”
Guards are also sometimes asked to pull triple shifts, the NYP reported. Vincent Schiraldi, the commissioner at the DOC, called this practice “terrible,” according to the NYP.
“Morale at the Department of Correction is very low,” said Schiraldi, according to the NYP. “It’s been a month and I think I’m playing to reasonably good reviews. But there’s no switch you pull on the wall that all of a sudden makes people happy to come to work.”
“But we’re coming back. The department is going to come back,” Schiraldi said, according to the New York Post. “I think within the next months, you’re going to see more people coming back to work and people happier with their workplace. … There’s going to be some people, for sure, that their frustration runs pretty deep and it will take a while.”
Tyliek Dyches was one of the officers who switched, he joined the DOC in June 2017 and worked at Rikers Island prison, according to the NYP. The prison recently had two separate incidents in March where murder suspects were accidentally released.
Dyches was on vacation when he found out he was accepted into the NYPD on June 28, according to the NYP. When he returned home on July 5, he immediately went to Rikers to empty his locker.
“My last day I worked before I went on vacation, I went into a triple [shift]. And I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me? My last day before vacation?’” he said, according to the NYP. “So, I walked in there and I walked out with a big garbage bag! And I had my own personal parade going over the bridge!”
The correction officers’ union sent a public letter out Wednesday boycotting Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio’s parade for “Hometown Heroes” of the COVID-19 pandemic. (RELATED: NYPD Hate Crimes Unit Investigates After Orthodox Jews, Including Baby, Are Slashed)
Please see our open letter to Mayor de Blasio published on page 19 of today’s NY POST. We won’t take part in any of your damn photo ops! If you think we’re heroes- then treat us right! Stop triple tours! #essentialnotexpendable pic.twitter.com/5E1UjUETIT
— COBA (@NYCCOBA1) July 7, 2021
The DOC is accused of “gross mismanagement and sheer negligence” that led to more than 1,700 jailers getting infected, said Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Benny Boscio Jr.
A group of prisoners filed a class-action lawsuit in January against Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Department of Correction and Community Supervision for not providing proper protection to prisoners who were at risk during the coronavirus pandemic.
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