Trans task force members condemn Rikers transfers
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The New York City Task Force on Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, Non-Binary, and Intersex Individuals condemned the decision to transfer women and transgender individuals on Rikers to upstate facilities. AP Photo by Seth Wenig
By Rachel Vick
The New York City Task Force on Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, Non-Binary, and Intersex Individuals issued a letter to Gov. Hochul and other elected officials condemning the decision to transfer women and transgender individuals from Rikers to facilities in Westchester.
They argue that the transfer only further endangers the individuals in question and fails to contribute to the creation of a safer jail.
“Women and TGNCNBI people housed at Rikers Island should not be used as pawns. Their safety should not be jeopardized due to staffing and crowding issues that they did not create,” said Mik Kinkead, TGNCNBI Task Force member and staff attorney with the Rikers Island Civil Re-Entry Project at The Legal Aid Society. “We are outraged that this decision was made without consulting the City’s own taskforce… and demand that Governor Hochul and Mayor de Blasio abandon this plan and work with defenders and others to decarcerate Rikers Island now.”
The 230 people would be moved from the Department of Correction to the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility or the Taconic Correctional Facility, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, twice a week starting later this week.
A majority are being held pre-trial, and dozens have signed their own petition in opposition to the move.
Task Force members Shear Avory, Dori A. Lewis, Deborah Lolai, Kimberly Mckenzie, Bryan J. Ellicott and Kinkead, who were not consulted before the decision was made, recognized the time-sensitive nature of the crisis on Rikers Island but say the decision to transfer is “ill-advised and lacks… expertise.”
They say the lack of consultation and outreach with other stakeholders “makes this move appear to be too hasty, too ill-considered, and solidifies a persistent pattern of disregarding the insight, expertise, and leadership of people with lived experience of the horrors of incarceration.”
“We are legal and cultural experts and this decision sidelines our legal authority and responsibility to advise DOC,” the letter reads. “Even if undertaken with the best of intentions, this does nothing to address the actual root causes of the issues on Rikers Island itself which have manifested for decades.”
The task force issued recommendations for Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James
Mayor Bill de Blasio, Councilmembers Helen Rosenthal and Keith Powers and Marcos Soler, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice centering decarceration in favor of alternatives such as work or medical release for vulnerable populations.
They are also requesting emergency public hearings to investigate the decision.
Though advocates remain firm in their stance that the treatment of those transferred will be subpar, DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said the move will reduce the number of unstaffed positions at other facilities and will connect the “population to the same or better services and programs than they receive on Rikers Island.”
The agency will have shuttle services from each of the five boroughs to the Westchester facilities for friends and family looking to visit the transferred individuals.
De Blasio defended the decision Wednesday and said that the city and state would accommodate the transferees and make sure they continue to get the services and access to attorneys and family members they get on Rikers.
“We absolutely want to make sure that all these individuals have the best possible situation,” de Blasio said. “The State facility the governor made available is a quality facility where we can actually provide more support than what we could do in the space we have at Rikers.”
“And we're going to absolutely accommodate families, lawyers, everyone. And we have a bigger mission that we have to achieve,” he added. “I think this is a fair and smart way to do this. I'm going to be very, very respectful of these individuals and their families. But it's also temporary while we solve an immediate reality.”
