Nonprofits provide plan for ending “crisis on Rikers Island”

Nonprofits with the long-term goal of ending pretrial detention submitted a 7-point plan calling for immediate action to the Board of Correction during its September meeting Tuesday.

“We are requesting that the Board of Correction adopt the following demands to release all people and stop sending people to these deadly jails,” Freedom Agenda, HALT Solitary, Jails Action Coalition, Visionary V, VOCAL-NY and Women’s Community Justice Association provided a list of demands to the Board of Correction wrote in a letter submitted to the board. An outdoor rally took place before the meeting to bring attention to the plan. 

The nonprofits called on the board to: 

• Issue a call for decarceration, including a demand to release all people and to “stop sending people to these deadly jails.”
• A call for the immediate release of all women, including those who are pregnant, transgender and gender non-conforming people, people with mental health needs and health problems, as well as people with city sentences.
• Require an actionable commitment to harm reduction.
• End the use of solitary confinement.
• Order Mayor Eric Adams to close the pipeline that feeds Rikers no later than Nov. 1.
• Require the city to create and sustain a pathway for stability for those leaving Department of Correction facilities.
• Address gendered harm on Rikers

“We’re all here with the collective message that Rikers Island is a potential death sentence for anyone who is held there,” said Keli Young, a civil rights campaign coordinator with VOCAL-NY, who spoke at the rally before the letter was delivered. “It needs to be ended immediately.”