Thirteen years after settling a case over mental-health discharge planning for people leaving Rikers, New York is getting closer to the goals it agreed to. But looming changes in federal…
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…
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…
Anna M. Kross broke gender barriers and charted new territory in making city jails humane. But the Rikers facility named in her honor is at the center of the city’s…
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.
“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.”
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…
