NYC Council bill would severely limit pepper spray use in jails; union slams law as ‘reckless’
Except in rare emergencies, NYC correction officers will no longer be allowed to use pepper spray to protect themselves or inmates on Rikers Island and other Big Apple jails, under a “reckless” new bill being considered by the City Council.
Far left Democratic Councilwoman Sandy Nurse’s legislation would require correction officers to first get authorization from tour commanders before firing “high-powered oleoresin capsicum sprays” — better known as pepper sprays – on out-of-control detainees.
The far-left Brooklyn pol, who chairs the criminal justice committee, quietly introduced the bill at Thursday’s council meeting, adding it onto the agenda but never discussing it.
Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán, a Queens Democratic socialist, signed on as a co-sponsor.
If passed, pepper spray could only be fired in “emergency cases when a delay in use … presents an immediate threat of death or serious injury or severely threatens the safety or security of the facility.”
And that puts both correction officers and detainees at risk, said Benny Boscio, president of the city’s correction officers union.
“Deploying chemical agents actually makes it less likely for inmates and officers to sustain serious injuries than by using physical force instead,” he told The Post.
“We invite Councilmember Nurse and any other councilmembers who support this reckless legislation to spend a full day with us in a housing area with gang-affiliated inmates and see if they still think our officers’ hands should be tied when utilizing chemical agents.”
Boscio also noted that the the Manhattan pol attended a Sept. 28, 2022 criminal justice committee hearing in which female correction officers offered harrowing accounts of being sexually assaulted.
Nurse “should know full well by now that chemical agents are only used in emergency situations, and it must be deployed immediately in order to save the lives of anyone in our jails who is being attacked by assaultive inmates,” Boscio said.
Nurse’s legislation is the latest move by the Council’s left-wing majority to try easing conditions for detainees at local jails, while a federal judge weighs whether the city’s decades-long failure to curb violence on Rikers warrants an independent authority, or “receiver,” running the lockups.
The Council in December approved legislation to severely limited the use of solitary confinement in jails, but Mayor Eric Adams, a moderate Dem, signed an emergency executive order last month blocking major parts of the plan hours before it was to go to effect.
“[Nurse’s] bill will only put correction officers in danger, so I am very confident it will pass the City Council,” quipped Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).
Nurse did not return messages, but she introduced the bill six months after a city jails oversight board released a damning report criticizing the NYC Department of Correction for staffers’ “overreliance on chemical agents.”
The Board of Correction found there were 2,972 pepper-sprays “incidents” in city jails during the first 10 months of 2023, a nearly 50% increase from the same period in 2018.
The board also cited 24 examples in October of correction officers firing pepper spray on mentally ill detainees without first consulting mental health staff, as required.
It also noted eight cases that same month where officers used pepper spray on detainees trying to hang themselves rather than cutting or removing the ropes or other “ligature” first.
The DOC didn’t return messages, and the Mayor’s Office said it’s reviewing the legislation.
