In the wake of media investigations and prosecutors’ reports revealing widespread problems at the city’s main jail facility, a small but influential set of voices has begun calling to close Rikers Island. With the goal of informing the growing debate, City & State and City Limits present this series of articles exploring Rikers Island, its problems, the proposals to fix them and the bold case for more sweeping change.
The key question might not be whether the city should live without Rikers, or how it would do so, but whether it has the political will to finish the transformation that has already started.
Rikers’ physical reality, many agree, is a crucial part of its problem.
The jury is still out on whether reforms – segregating the most violent inmates, a crackdown on smuggling, faster use-of-force investigations – will be effective.
City Limits contacted all 51 members of the City Council, the five borough presidents and the three citywide officials to ask whether they support closing Rikers.
Read the City & State/ City Limitsseries on “Closing Rikers.”
In the wake of a state budget that whiffed on criminal justice reform, Gov. Cuomo has continued to chide Mayor de Blasio for sticking to a 10-year timeline for closing Rikers Island that the governor believes is too slow.
The city will sweat the details for a long time. But let’s give de Blasio his due for putting his stamp on history.
