Visitors struggle with Hours-long waits, Multiple checkpoints on Rikers Island

It’s probably easier to get tossed into a city jail than it is to visit someone who’s been locked up on Rikers Island.

 

Parents struggle with cranky toddlers as they endure hours-long waits, facing chaos and confusion at multiple checkpoints that could take nearly an entire day just to have an hour-long visit with a loved one who’s behind bars.

Wait times continue to increase even as the number of inmates in the sprawling penal facility goes down. Even those seeking to drop off packages and pay bail must be screened at the jail’s main entrance.

“Starting at the very beginning, when people get off the bus and begin at the visitors house, there are inordinately long waits,” said Jane Stanicki, a board member at Hour Children, a non-profit that provides support services for formerly incarcerated women.

The Correction Department convened an eight-member panel last May to review mounting complaints and streamline the process. To date, the group of inmate advocates, experts and departmental brass has yet to produce a single concrete proposal.

“It’s a tedious and cumbersome process,” said Stanley Richards, a Board of Correction member who serves on the committee.

The department quietly included a rendering of a revamped entrance area in its proposed and yet-unreleased capital plan, a source said, but the document remains classified and the cost is unclear.

The de Blasio administration has vowed to reform the scandal-scarred jail system but appears focused solely on decreasing violence behind bars at the expense of improving the visitation process for the unfortunate souls who find themselves crossing the East River causeway and enduring the misery of these depressing, bottlenecked avenues of entry.

Department honchos claim changes are being worked out.

Commissioner Joseph Ponte “cares deeply about the experience” and “intends to create more family-friendly areas,” department spokeswoman Eve Kessler said.

Rikers draws as many as 1,500 visitors on each visitation day. Officials have long believed that much of the contraband smuggled into its facilities is passed along during those visits. As a result, Ponte has increased the number of security checks people must endure.

That has helped to further delay a depressing process that has long been plagued by disorder.

“They discourage people from visiting their loved ones,” said Lisa Dale, 47, of Staten Island, who has been visiting her niece for nearly a decade during her stint in Rikers and, currently, upstate at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

“You want to penalize the inmates, I get that,” she said. “But by no means should the family be penalized.”

Children are forced to wait in line with their parents for hours. A small play area for children on the side of the main entrance has long been closed, in part because some mothers left their children there unobserved.

By contrast, other state facilities have operational playrooms for tykes. City jail officials have looked into creating similar zones, though no formal plan has been submitted.

“It’s not a high priority right now,” a high-ranking jail official told the Daily News.

Meanwhile, parents continue to suffer, with many first-time visitors struggling to understand basic rules such as whether strollers are permitted (they are) and how many diapers can be brought into each facility (one, after visitors pass the final checkpoint).

“The last time I was there I saw so many babies … screaming,” said Dale. “These kids are sweaty, they’re hungry and they’re antsy. It’s crazy.”