New councilmembers reflect on surprise visit to Rikers
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Tiffany Cabán (pictured), Alexa Aviles, Sandy Nurse and Shahana Hanif toured the prison for the first time in office. Screenshot via Zoom
By Rachel Vick
A group of City Councilmembers, including freshman Queens Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, ended the first week of 2022 with a surprise visit to Rikers Island — the first time many were seeing the jail in-person.
What they saw was a prime example of the mismanagement of the jail that everyone from attorneys, lawmakers, federal officials, incarcerated people and corrections officers say have been abundant in the past year, the councilmembers said.
Cabán was joined by fellow councilmembers Alexa Aviles, Sandy Nurse and Shahana Hanif, Legal Aid Attorney Tina Luongo and advocates to speak on the current issues facing the facility, their observations from the latest visit to five of the eight jails and how to make changes happen.
“There were lots of areas we walked through functioning as the equivalent of solitary,” Cabán said. “It's not supposed to be solitary, but was essentially being run as such; you literally could not tell the difference and that was something I found deeply concerning.”
They were able to visit most of the jails, but had to make the decision against observing areas with confirmed COVID-19 cases — one the lawmakers said was not made lightly, but in an attempt to minimize the spread, though after the tour they felt it was likely the infections were being contained.
In the new intake facility, Aviles said the stench and unsanitary conditions still left significant room for improvement. There, they met three transgender individuals being kept in a separate holding cell — the wardens said it was due to a fight, but at least one detainee said it was sexual assault after being incorrectly placed in men’s general population.
“[This was my] first time seeing where so many… friends throughout my life have been held,” Aviles said. “There's nothing to prepare you. Not the calls, not the pleas over the phone. Nothing could prepare you to see the actual conditions they are in on a daily basis.”
“During this surge, where we have COVID rampant throughout the island it is mind blowing that we have allowed such a large percent of the population to be here,” she added. “There's no way to isolate people in congregate care.”
There are currently 5,277 people being held In Rikers Island’s facilities. Of those, 800 are under the age of 21 and a vast majority are awaiting trial. Last year, 16 people died on the island or in connection to their time served.
Solutions put forward by criminal justice advocates to reduce the degree of harm as the city works to permanently shutter Rikers include limiting the number of new detainees.
Luongo said keeping eye on the situation is crucial to addressing the crisis because “Rikers is an island because they wanted to make people invisible [and] solitary is a torture chamber that makes people invisible.”
“DAs can take steps to not just give rhetoric but to take action, “ they added, shouting out newly minted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who set a policy agenda limiting bail and detention to only the most dangerous arrests. “The defenders of New York City, we have our eyes on it.”
Freedom Agenda Co-Director Darren Mack, who was formerly incarcerated in Rikers, said the only true way to solve the Rikers crisis is to completely and permanently close the facilities.
According to Mack, among the greatest obstacles to progress of any kind is the Court Officers Benevolent Association, which he referred to as a “mass incarceration lobby group… [that] perpetuates fear over facts” with policies that leave little room for priorities from any correctional officer who might be in favor of closing RIkers.
Key to seeing progress until then, he said, is decarceration, correctional officers returning to work and holding officers accountable for violence against incarcerated people.
“We all believe in fairness; we want a just system, but thousands of people are detained in city jails, people detained pretrial,” Mack said. “It's not fair and it's not just or human for people to be in conditions so dire they take their own lives.”
COBA President Benny Boscio issued a statement refuting the claims made by the councilmembers and Mack, and called “for safety and security to return to the nation’s second-largest jail system.”
“Our members are currently working 12 hour and even 24 hour tours, ensuring inmates get every service and program they are entitled to and we are performing those essential services, while working in one of the most dangerous environments imaginable,” Boscio said. “We will never allow anyone to treat our members as if we are invisible or misrepresent the realities we face every day.”
