By Clio Blazer
Fifty years after the notorious Attica uprising, jail facilities in the United States are still under-resourced, overcrowded, and unsanitary. In May of 2013, Rikers Island was classified as one of the top ten worst correctional facilities in the United States, a title it still possesses as of 2021. The reputation for violence and unmanaged facilities has advanced to a near-total loss of control and inhumane conditions.
Approximately 85% of Riker’s inhabitants are still awaiting trial. When arriving at this facility, civilians are placed in intake, where they are assessed by medical professionals and are supposed to be held for only 24 hours before being transferred to cells. These holding pens are facing drastically hazardous conditions. According to The Daily episode titled “No Crime Is Worth That” an inmate at Rikers, Richard Brown, relayed that in the holding pens people were sleeping on the floors, standing in corners, defecating on the ground, etc. Brown expressed fear to use the one small bathroom provided as the cells had become overrun by gangs and to reach the restroom he would have to walk through the overcrowded enclosures, potentially disturbing a gang member.
The pandemic has caused a staffing shortage which has allowed the holding pens to largely become overrun by gangs. Currently, about 1,600 officers have been absent from Rikers, a near quarter of the 8,000 officers working in NYC jails. A lenient health policy at Rikers allows for sick days to be taken for an unrestricted amount of time if provided with a doctor’s note. The city sued employees for these absences, blaming the essential workers for the increased chaos, but with the pandemic as an excuse, officers’ absences have not changed. These vacancies are not without reason. More than 2,200 workers have been exposed and infected by Covid-19. Workers at Rikers are subject to rigorous and unsafe conditions, and because of the staffing shortages, employees often work triple shifts without breaks and sustenance. While much of the focus and public outrage has been directed at corrections department employees, often there are instances of harm towards these caretakers, and in some cases, workers’ lives have been at stake. Nearly half of correctional facilitators in New York City are female, and as sexual assault cases worsen, these women are placed at high risk. There have been 19 allegations of incarcerated people sexually assaulting uniformed officers this year alone. So the chronic staffing shortages and overcrowded inmate population have compromised the safety of detainees, as gangs begin to take over with little government-initiated consequence.
The brutality amongst employees and detainees remains largely unabated, despite its long and profuse history. With the combination of incoming gang control and lack of correctional workers, violence has risen substantially since the beginning of the pandemic. This year has been the deadliest in the jail system since 2016: as of October this year, 14 people have died at Rikers, 6 of which were suicides.
Outgoing mayor Bill de Blasio visited Rikers in late September of this year, and upon departure called for the complex to be closed. “The whole thing upsets me” de Blasio recounted. Lack of movement towards improving Rikers has led to skepticism amongst the public regarding whether or not the city really is capable of managing such a disordered system. Six months before Covid-19, de Blasio approved a plan that would dedicate $9 billion towards creating four new borough jails so that Rikers could be shut down. Because of the pandemic budget crisis, this plan has been delayed from its initial estimate of completion by the fall of 2026 to August 2027. As of now, the state of Rikers is largely dependent on Mayor-elect Eric Adams. Adams reported that he does support this plan, emphasizing that “right now, we need to respond to the needs of not only the inmates who are there, but also the correction officers.”
Closing Rikers may not be the best solution, as there are no guarantees that detainees will end up in a more humane facility. Lack of support and order in jails is an issue that is not unique to Rikers, but affects all detention facilities in New York City, and elsewhere. There is concern that De Blasio’s plan to build new jails will not secure the health of incarcerated people, and in fact, will replicate the deficiencies of Rikers Island. Without progress on the De Blasio initiative nor interim improvements in the conditions at Rikers, the job to fix the complex and neglected incarceration system now falls in the hands of mayor-elect Eric Adams. Will he seek improvements regarding the systemic issues at Rikers, or follow past authoritative figures and let this facility continue to degenerate?