Photo provided courtesy of Pixabay.com
By Elizabeth Echard, Staff Writer
On October 17, 2019, the New York City Council made a momentous change and voted to close Rikers Island.[1] Rikers Island (herein after “Rikers”) is a 400-acre, ten-jail complex that is located across the river from LaGuardia Airport. [2] Rikers includes correctional facilities for men, women, and juveniles, as well as an infirmary, a power plant, and a bakery.[3]Around 77,000 people cycle through Rikers in a year, holding about 10,000 people there during one day.[4] Rikers has been known to hold the reputation of being an extremely violent place, with around 1,000 stabbings or slashings happening yearly during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.[5]This outburst of violence was credited to the crack epidemic, the abundance of weapons, and rival gangs being held in the same cell block, among other issues.[6] Since the late 1990’s, aggressive efforts to decrease the brutal violence that occurs at Rikers had been moderately successful, but around the early 2000’s, these efforts began to fail and violence was again on the rise.[7]
Around 2017, many resources had been added to Rikers in an effort to combat its epidemic of violence.[8]These resources included surveillance cameras and various training programs geared toward helping the inmates as well as the guards and corrections officers learn how to be better prepared to handle violent situations, specifically surrounding mental illnesses and addiction.[9] However, despite the many resources added, the violence at Rikers continued to whirl out of control. [10] In response to the rate of violence, New York City officials began to explore new avenues to control the violence, including closing the prison itself.[11]
The decision to close Rikers is intended to reform New York’s criminal justice system by performing a major overhaul to its prison system.[12] Many people who are detained at Rikers are being detained for long time periods, even years, before their trial and as a result serve more time prior to trial than the length of their actual sentence.[13] The plan is intended to help all of the “Kalief Browders” incarcerated in the New York prison system, referring to those who have suffered lasting effects from the violence they perceived at Rikers.[14]Kalief Browder was a young black man who was arrested and detained at Rikers in 2010 for allegedly stealing a backpack.[15] Browder spent three years detained in Rikers for this alleged crime, most of which was in solitary confinement.[16] Browder’s case was ultimately dismissed in 2013 and he was released from Rikers.[17] However, after losing three years of his life for a crime that he was innocent of, Browder took his own life two years after he was released.[18]
This plan aims to relocate and distribute all of the Rikers inmates into four smaller prisons that consist of 886 beds each, located in Downtown Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan, setting Rikers to close by 2026.[19] Reducing mass incarceration and the prison populations is at the heart of this plan.[20] The hope is that the new jails will be smaller, safer, and more humane while lowering the number of incarcerated people awaiting trial and hearing dates.[21] The plan aims to achieve this by avoiding delays of court and being closer in proximity to courthouses and legal representatives, thus, shortening the length of time individuals are incarcerated.[22]
However, the plan to close Rikers is being hit with some backlash.[23] The change to smaller prisons would cut Rikers’ current population about in half and many citizens are concerned that this plan would be putting dangerous criminals back on the streets.[24] Some citizens think this plan may be a good idea, but will take too long to implement and fall by the wayside if there is a drastic turnover of officials in future elections.[25] Others are advocating for the money going into the Rikers reform plan to be spent on developing community programs to allow people to avoid incarceration in the first place rather than new jails because, as Seth Barron, project director for the Manhattan Institute conservative think tank stated, “smaller jails may mean fewer inmates, but not fewer criminals.”[26]
Additionally, New York City has attempted to aid efforts of criminal justice reform by repealing anti-drug legislation that created mandatory minimum prison sentences for non-violent, low-level drug offenders and, are currently attempting to outlaw cash bail for most individuals who are charged with misdemeanors and non-violent felonies in January.[27] New York City has taken further reform initiatives by banning solitary confinement for those under the age of 22, expanding diversionary programs that keep people out of jail, eliminating arrests for most people who are found with small amounts of Marijuana, and implementing and expanding a supervised release program that allows defendants to await trial outside of a prison.[28]
As of now, it is unclear how the closure of Rikers will operate and affect criminal justice reform in New York City. This plan may be a beneficial new addition to New York’s other reform initiatives or it may not work as currently planned. It will be interesting to watch New York’s criminal justice reform plans in the news over the next few years to see what is implemented, what is not, and what results will follow regarding mass incarceration.
[1] Matthew Haag, Rikers Would Close in Historic Plan to Remake N.Y. Jail System, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/nyregion/rikers-island-jail-closing.html (October 17, 2019).
[2] Michael Schwirtz, What is Riker’s Island, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/nyregion/rikers-island-prison-new-york.html (April 5, 2017).
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
[11] Id.
[12] Matthew Haag, Rikers Would Close in Historic Plan to Remake N.Y. Jail System, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/nyregion/rikers-island-jail-closing.html (October 17, 2019).
[13] Id.
[14] P.R. Lockhart, Why a Vote to Close New York’s Rikers Island is Being Met with Backlash, Vox Media, https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/18/20921389/rikers-island-new-york-jail-close-new-jails (October 18, 2019).
[15] Id.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Michael Schwirtz, What is Riker’s Island, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/nyregion/rikers-island-prison-new-york.html (April 5, 2017).
[20] Id.
[21] Id.
[22] Id.
[23] Matthew Haag, Rikers Would Close in Historic Plan to Remake N.Y. Jail System, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/nyregion/rikers-island-jail-closing.html (October 17, 2019).
[24] Id.
[25] Id.
[26] P.R. Lockhart, Why a Vote to Close New York’s Rikers Island is Being Met with Backlash, Vox Media, https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/18/20921389/rikers-island-new-york-jail-close-new-jails (October 18, 2019).
[27] Matthew Haag, Rikers Would Close in Historic Plan to Remake N.Y. Jail System, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/nyregion/rikers-island-jail-closing.html (October 17, 2019).
[28] Id.
