#Closerikers and Then What?

I made my way to the #CloseRikers workshop on the morning of March 5th, 2017 hosted by Beyond the Bars Conference. Despite joining the #Closerikers vigil in front of Mayor de Blasio's residence back in December 2016, I was also very interested in the next steps. Close Rikers Island and then what?

The facilitators were Janos Marton, Director of Policy & Campaigns and Erin George, Advocacy Coordinator at Just Leadership USA. Erin and I graduated from the School of Social Work together so it was great to see a familiar face and the staunch level of advocacy your peers are involved in!

They began the workshop by giving a brief history of jails in NYC. Prior to Rikers Island, the New York City detention center was Black Wells Island, currently named Roosevelt Island. Black Wells Island seems to have had an interesting history with multiple owners. I looked it up and turns out it was initially owned by a group of Canarsie Indians called the Minnahanock. Towards the end of the 17th century, it was owned by the Blackwell Brothers who sold it to the City of New York in the early 19th century. It was mainly used for physical and mental rehabilitation which included a penitentiary, lunatic asylums and hospitals. However due to disrepair and buildings being demolished, it was turned into a residential island in 1973.

During this time, the new detention center was already established elsewhere in the name of Rikers Island in 1932.

The facts of Rikers Island are uncontested:

•  It admits an average of 211 detainees a day. Which means that for a given year, an average of 77,000 New Yorkers cycled through Rikers. 
• Violence towards detainees by DOC staff rose every year from 2004 to 2008.
• It costs tax payers of New York an average of $209,000 a year to detain a person at Rikers Island.
• There is a disproportation number of Blacks and Latinos detained: 89%. Given that they comprise of 53% of this city's residents, something doesn't add up.  
• The majority of detainees (79%) are awaiting trial because they are too poor to afford bail. This certainly doesn't align with the justice system's concept of "innocent until proven guilty." 

I have heard again and again horror stories of detainees, specially youth, awaiting trial for many years and experiencing absurd levels of brutality in the hands of Correction Officers. Stories like Kalief Browder come into my mind and it hurts and saddens me that Rikers Island is home to such savagery. 

With that said, it should be noted that many court mandated programs rely on Rikers Island as a condition of a participant's release. When an individual is detained at Rikers, court mandated programs such as Alternative-To-Incarcerations (ATIs) advocate for individuals to be released to the community in place of serving time at Rikers and work with these programs who will monitor them and connect them to services appropriately; be it mental health, substance abuse, housing, income support, educational, vocational or employment. If these individuals become non compliant or ceases to engage with the program, after diligent search is conducted, the programs are required to report this to the Courts who will issue a warrant for their arrest. This process holds individuals accountable and works toward reducing recidivism by assisting with re-entry services. As unfortunate as it is, having a mandate over their heads help individuals in taking this release seriously and not considering it a "get-out-of-jail-free card." What happens when Rikers Island is shut down?

And so I posed this question to the facilitators. The slogan of the campaign is #Closerikers, Build Communities. It sounds self-explanatory and yet in need of more elaboration. They responded that they are working on:

• Speedy trial reform (so as to honor an individual's right under the Sixth Amendment)
• Bail reform (where participants are increasingly Released on their own Recognizance [ROR'd] in place of paying for bail or bond) 

Unfortunately, this still didn't answer my question about what would happen to ATI programs. If you're thinking that we could bring in prisons as the jail alternative in response to an individuals non-compliance is still not the answer. Some of these participants are arrested for misdemeanors, which amounts their sentence to less than a year of jail time. Prisons are primarily for individuals serving felonies; with sentences longer than a year. In addition, prisons are for those convicted (post-plea). Similar to ATIs there are Alternative to Detention (ATD) programs that work towards getting participants ROR'd (pre-plea) into the community. So city jails unfortunately play a role in ATDs and ATIs. 

The other major question posed by attendees at the workshop was what Mayor de Blasio's response has been to the #closerikers campaign. He reportedly stated that closing it down would be too expensive, too lengthy a process, and too complicated. However this is not to say that the Mayor supports incarceration over rehabilitation. Throughout his years he has chartered a number of ATD and ATI programs through the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene and the Department of Justice, namely the Supervised Release Program and the Court-based Intervention and Resource Teams. 

I agree with the campaign in that Rikers is beyond reform and needs to be shut down. But I need more convincing in terms of the broader picture and consequences of closing it down. And I'm certain that the same thoughts are resonating in the minds of those closest to deciding the fate of this island, namely Mayor de Blasio. 

"Invisible Women - The Experience of Women and Girls in the Era of Mass Incarceration"

On Tuesday, October 18, 2016, my friend Kacy and I attended a panel discussion at the Union Theological Seminary hosted by Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow". My main incentive to go was of course that Michelle Alexander was hosting it. I had recently finished reading her book and was excited to see her in person. My passion for criminal justice reform was secondary in this case.

Michelle spoke so eloquently about the issue of mass incarceration, about the systemic racial injustice to people of color. She was reportedly told that she can choose any topic for this panel discussion. Her book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" included in its Introduction that "relatively little is said here about the unique experience of women, Latinos and immigrants in the criminal justice system... I hope other scholars and advocates will pick up where the book leaves off and develop the critique more fully or apply the themes sketched here to other groups and other contexts." And rightfully so, she picked the impact of mass incarceration on women.

The panel included four amazing female advocates:

 

• Susan Burton, Executive Director, A New Way of Life and Co-Founder of All of Us or None
• Gina Clayton, Executive Director, Essie Justice Group
• Andrea James, Founder Families for Justice as Healing and author of Upper Bunkies Unite And Other Thoughts on the Politics of Mass Incarceration
• Teresa Younger, President and CEO, Ms. Foundation for Women

Michelle began the discussion with Gina, whose loved one is incarcerated. He is reportedly serving his ninth of twenty years in prison. She spoke about working as a public defender and resolving to further examine and expose the harmful impact of mass incarceration on women who have loved ones living behind bars. She founded the Essie Justice Group in 2014 to support and empower women with incarcerated loved ones.

Susan Burton* was my favorite panelist. Susan was in and out of prison for twenty years. A correction officer had once told her, while she was boarding the bus back to her home in Los Angeles after her sixth stint behind bars, “We’ll see you back here soon,” he chided. “We’ll have a bed waiting for you.” Susan was determined to never return again. She checked herself into a residential drug treatment program, got herself clean, found a job and eventually a house. Her next step was to return to the same bus station she was dropped off from prison. She approached women just like her, returning from prison. Susan offered them a house to live and guidance on getting their life back on track. Her venture is called "A New Way of Life."

*Susan was featured in the Star Bucks series, 'UpStanders: Breaking the Prison Pipeline.'

Andrea James served a 24-month federal prison sentence, is a former criminal defense attorney and the Founder of Families for Justice As Healing." While incarcerated she became deeply concerned about the excessive prison sentences that women were serving, an average being ten years, while their families and children were left to survive on their own. She had dedicated her life to advocate for women in prison and to end the war on drugs.

Teresa Younger served as the first female and first African American Executive Director of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Connecticut. She was most recently the Executive Director of the Connecticut General Assembly’s Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), where she has spearheaded successful campaigns that have resulted in state legislation to raise the minimum wage and provide paid sick leave in Connecticut. Today she is the President and CEO of Ms. Foundation for Women whose focus is on advocating for equal pay for equal work, access to affordable, high-quality reproductive health care, addressing child care costs and parental leave, or ending gender-based violence.

At the end of the panel discussion, individuals from the audience were invited to speak, namely those impacted by mass incarceration. I distinctly remember two women who spoke; one of them was a white lady with a history of criminal justice involvement. She reported that she at first did not know how to speak out on racial injustice, with the fear that her friends of color will say, "Oh what do you know!" After being incarcerated she has been advocating for racial justice and prison reform. The other female was Tiffany McFadden who volunteers her time to assist women in navigating the Family Court Process. She provides them resources and referrals. She took great pride in being a volunteer assisting these individuals. Kacy and I, being paid social workers to also assist our clients, decided to speak with her after the discussion ended to exchange contact information. Who knows, I could refer my clients to her and in turn share any helpful resources I have. I left her with my business card. She emailed me the next day.