Jailers in Brooklyn work 16-hour shifts as federal lockup in Manhattan transfers inmates
NEW YORK — Brooklyn’s federal jail is struggling with a serious staff shortage as it takes an influx of new detainees from the Manhattan federal lockup that is in the process of closing, a top union official said.
Stretched-thin corrections officers at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center struggle to deal with the new inmates transfers from Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center arrive every day, said the Brooklyn jail’s union president, Rhonda Barnwell.
“Because we have no staff, some days there is no one assigned to a housing unit. Sometimes for eight hours there’s no one. That’s very dangerous,” said Barnwell, who works in the MDC’s medical department. “The agency (Bureau of Prisons) is quite aware we’ve had several posts unmanned, and they’ve done absolutely nothing about it.”
The result is exhausted corrections officers pulling double shifts and sleeping in their cars outside the Sunset Park jail, Barnwell said. Often, she said, sick inmates go without treatment because the medical staff is so shorthanded.
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