There were some who assumed that when Mayor de Blasio on March 31 reversed his position against closing Rikers Island because it would be too difficult politically to get city neighborhoods to accept new or expanded jails to which inmates could be sent instead, he was merely trying to defuse a potential issue that could complicate what seemed an easy road to re-election.
But when the Department of Investigation on the last weekday of April issued a scathing report on Correction Commissioner Joe Ponte’s frequent absences from duty and rampant misuse of Correction Department vehicles by both himself and numerous subordinates, it presented an alternative explanation: maybe the Mayor had realized that the travails of Rikers Island were causing Mr. Ponte and his aides to take an inordinate number of mental-health days.
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