Rikers will be replaced by four smaller jails, with 3,300 beds, spread across four boroughs
reported that prisoners “will have the privilege of serving their time in the finest and most up-to-date penitentiary in the United States.” The island jail was anything but. Within a few years of its opening the island was overrun with rats, overcrowded, filthy and dangerous. Violence among the inmates was common; the guards did not hold back much either.
Over the years Rikers has housed Tupac Shakur, a rapper, Sid Vicious, a punk rocker, David Berkowitz, a serial killer, Mark David Chapman, who murdered John Lennon, as well as thousands of murderers, drug dealers, thieves, and the many too poor to get bail. But on October 17th Rikers got its own final sentence. New York’s city council voted to close the jail for good in 2026. That fulfils a promise made by Bill de Blasio, the mayor, in 2017, to close the jail within a decade.
Some 80% of the inmates have not been convicted of any crime. Rikers, like most jails in America, holds people awaiting trial or serving short sentences. Half the inmates suffer from mental illness. Many wait months or even years for a court hearing. Kalief Browder was just 16 years old when he was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack. Because he could not pay bail, he spent nearly three years inside, with months in solitary confinement, as his hearings were repeatedly delayed.
As well as being better built, the new jails will be closer to courthouses, to public transport and the inmates’ own communities. Julio Medina, whose charity, Exodus, helps former prisoners avoid going back in, says the new jails are “an opportunity to change the way we incarcerate and look at justice”. Mr Medina, a former Rikers inmate himself, is thrilled that “the warehouse of violence” is closing.
What happens to the island is still to be decided. Some suggest making it part of nearby LaGuardia airport. Some politicians want to use it for a water waste-treatment plant. But the island’s panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline could easily attract property developers. In the end, the city may prefer to cell up."Torture Island’s final sentence"
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