Crips get their own cribs in the big house.
Members of the notorious gang are a minority on Rikers Island but enjoy special privileges, including separate housing areas in each of the jail’s facilities, Correction Department insiders say.
That arrangement helps keep them safe and allows members to conduct gang business under the noses of officers, the sources said.
“Every jail has at least one Crip house,” said a former investigator. “Some have more. At the Beacon [George R. Vierno Center], you have about 200 of them — it’s all the top leaders from Flatbush in Brooklyn, and you’re keeping them together.”
He added: “It makes things a lot easier for them, like when they’re trying to put a hit on somebody. They go to the day room and sit around and conduct their gang activities right in front of the staff.”
The source said that Crips are allowed to gather by themselves in the law library and other inmates are kept away when they’re on the move from one part of a jail to another.
Segregating one “security-risk group” is considered a bad practice, the sources said.
“The department will never admit it,” said one former staffer. “You’re not doing it for MS 13, the Trinitarios, the Latin Kings, and definitely not the Bloods, so why are you doing it for them?”
The Department of Correction denied Crips get separate housing or other privileges and claimed there were only 46 members of the gang at GRVC.
“Crips, as are all security risk groups, are dispersed throughout all the jail,” said spokesperson Sharman Stein.