Eighty-one recruits are slated to graduate from the city Correction Department’s Academy on Friday — unafraid of the turmoil that has roiled New York City’s jails in recent years.
“Anything worthwhile is going to be challenging,” said F. Serra, 24, a former private investigator from Long Island.
“Wherever it takes me I want to be there, and contribute my two cents,” Serra said of the possibilities of a Correction career.
“There is a lot of work to be done and I feel that the challenge of helping in that growth is more interesting compared that of to other law enforcement agencies.”
Serra and a classmate, Y. Mohammad, were interviewed by the Us.Mistertruth on the condition that for security reasons, they be identified only by their last names and first initials.
Mohamed, 30, grew up in Brooklyn. She has relatives who work in the Correction Department, and relatives who have been in jail — “both sides,” as she put it.
“We can be positive role models and help people” said Mohamed, who previously worked as a union carpenter. “It’s a crucial time, and if I can step in and be a part of that growth, I think it will be a good thing for me.”
The Correction Department has been buffeted by staffing shortfalls, a rash of deaths in the jails, struggles with violence and conditions, employee harassment cases, relentless outside criticism, hawk-like oversight by a federal monitor and the looming if somewhat disorganized closure of Rikers Island in 2027.
But if you ask two of the new officers, F. Serra, and Y. Mohamed, why they would submit themselves to such an atmosphere, the answers might be a touch surprising.
The full first names of Serra and Mohamed are being withheld for security reasons at the request of the Correction Department.
While this year’s class has 81 graduates — not counting four more cadets who have yet to finish firearms training — the class of 2022 had 230 members. There were no Correction Academy classes in the pandemic-marred years of 2020 and 2021. The class of 2019 totaled 382 recruits.
By comparison, the classes from 2015 through 2018 had more than 1,000 members in each class.
In recent years, the headcount of uniformed Correction Department staff has steadily fallen — from 10,862 in 2017 to 7,068 in 2022, a drop of 35%, figures from the city comptroller’s office show.
The jail population decreased in the same five-year period, from 9,500 in 2017 to 5,559 in 2022, a decline of 41%.
Half of this year’s graduating class is Black and more than a quarter are Hispanic, the department said. Women make up 37% of the class.
The class is the first from the Correction Department to train almost entirely in the NYPD’s $1.2 billion Police Academy in College Point, Queens. The class graduation Friday is in the auditorium there, in recognition of that key change in correction training.
“The Correction Academy is right now in a strip mall and we wanted to give them the best and most dynamic form of training,” said DOC’s Deputy Commissioner of Training Robert Gonzalez.
“This takes them to a whole new level.”
It is also the first class in memory to go through training in 12 weeks instead of the previously required 24 weeks, as The News first reported.
But in a new initiative, the class will also receive eight weeks of field training, during which each new officer will be assigned to a veteran officer who will show them the ropes, Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez noted that the 20 weeks of training in all exceeds the six-week minimum established by the state Department of Criminal Justice Services and the eight weeks that the state correction officers undergo.
“This is real support and real mentorship,” Gonzalez said. “Previously, they were pretty much thrown into the jails. We trained them on tactics, how to do observations, how to write reports. That’s never really been done.”
Gonzalez said the agency also plans to break ground this year on a new $250 million training facility on the grounds of the NYPD Police Academy.
As The News reported in April, the agency recently eliminated the college credit requirement for prospective officers in an effort to further broaden the pool.
Serra and Mohamed said the past 12 weeks have been something of a blur. Now they face a new challenge in the housing units in one of the seven active jails on Rikers Island.
“You try to establish a rapport and start to develop trust,” Serra said. “At the end of the day, all you have is your integrity, which means doing the right thing every day in the facilities even if no one is around to praise you.”
Added Mohamed, “When you do your job, according to the policies, with integrity and professionalism, things will be fine.”