In multiple ways, the workers took on the company along the contested front between the new and old economy, and won.
Nearly a year ago, the city’s Board of Correction voted to enact revised guidelines to address high rates of sexual abuse in the city’s correctional facilities. The final rule has encountered a chain a delays.
Is the uptick in knife violence on the streets a reflection of the increase in conflict inside the city’s jails?
Count Rev. Al Sharpton with Mayor de Blasio among the skeptics about the notion of closing Rikers Island.
Some want Rikers to close altogether. The mayor says that’s not a realistic goal. But a Manhattan Assemblyman says the de Blasio administration should at least move pre-trail detainees off the island.
What’s really behind the push to close Rikers—whether it’s moral clarity or fiscal concern—will determine whether mothballing the island actually makes New York a more humane place.
Melissa Mark-Viverito is launching a commission to look at alternatives. The rationale for—and complexities in—shuttering the island of jails was the focus of a November City & State/City Limits series.
Two women allege they were subjected to regular sexual abuse on the island. Naming them would punish the women for coming forward with complaints that have spurred a broader discussion about rape, power and incarceration.
“Closing Rikers Island is a great idea – but we must have fully operational alternatives in place first, not just some half-baked notions that are destined to fail.”
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