Opinion: Don’t be fooled, Rikers is a hellhole

Queens City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán. File photo by Emil Cohen/ NYC Council Media Unit

By Tiffany Cabán

This Tuesday, upon completing a tour of Rikers Island, where dozens of New Yorkers have died in the past couple of years, the far right flank of the City Council (incomprehensibly called the “Common Sense Caucus”) held a press conference at which they described the jail as a site of “humanitarian compassion.”

What about the court-ordered federal monitor team assigned to oversee the facility, which deemed the violent chaos at the jail so pervasive that they recommended the city be held in contempt and the facility placed under federal receivership? In the view of the caucus, “they’re not telling the truth.”

Let’s use our common sense. Whose assessment of conditions at Rikers Island is more credible: a court-mandated federal monitor team of expert watchdogs, or George Santos’ closest political allies who routinely spew bigoted MAGA garbage and conspiracy theories worthy of QAnon?

I’d like to think I have some credibility as well. After all, not only did I spend my years as a public defender representing hundreds upon hundreds of New Yorkers incarcerated on the island, not only am I regularly kept apprised of conditions by people who work or are incarcerated there, not only do I represent the island in the City Council, but to top it all off, I have been there for unannounced visits many times.

“Unannounced” is the key. When you pre-arrange a visit, the Department of Correction can curate a tour designed to paint a deceptively rosy picture of conditions. They can take you to certain program floors and not others. They can allow you to speak with certain people and not others. There is no way to conceal all of the human rights violations on the island, but with enough advance warning, they can hide the worst violence and chaos from you.

In short, they can pull the wool over your eyes.

Of course, that was the point of Tuesday’s visit. My right wing colleagues went in hoping to have wool pulled over their eyes, so they in turn could pull it over yours.

Tiffany Cabán represents Queens’ 22nd District, which includes Rikers Island, in the New York City Council.