My Shoes to fit, closure of a Brutal Institution

The latest of Closure of Rikers Island, the approach, both in favor of and in opposition to the Borough Based Jails A response to Not leaving Anyone Behind. 

By Victor M. Herrera

Member of Justleadership-CloseRikers

Advocate for Criminal and Social Justice Reforms

The City Council Hearings of September 5th, 2019 plan on closing Rikers Island and Borough Based Jails was organized with a powerful community engagement of JustleadershipUSA Closerikers Community that included the testimony of the community and as many as 200 of the directly and indirectly impacted however there has been much to consider for the plan as those in favor and in opposition have expressed the differing factors on the reasons for and the need for a starting point of beginning the removal of many of the people still languishing on a penal colony filled with corruption and governmental promotion (New York City Department of Corrections) of violence that is seemingly dismissed by the City agency responsible for years of oppressive brutality. (https://citylimits.org/2019/09/05/closing-rikers-the-10-major-concerns-that-emerged-at-the-public-hearing/)

I am my community which includes a directly impacted formerly incarcerated that spent 4 years on the Penal colony in the 80's where the jail population was bursting at the seams stemming from years of Broken Windows Policing. 35 years later I am the product of a system that targeting minority black and Hispanic communities with many of the so-called law enforcement initiatives that included the supposed War on Drugs and Quality of Life offenses created a systemic era of mass incarceration not seen anywhere outside of the United States. Numerous Presidents, Governors, Mayors and other elected officials somehow knew of the practice and simply turned a blind eye to the profits over people was all to obvious and intended, as they too benefitted from its atrocious timing of a prosecutorial era. Now the turn of tide with advocacy and campaigns starting from a good friend and mentor Glenn E. Martin back in 2016 and the momentum put into the spectrum of accountability, progress made to an extent of an understatement. Today, many of the campaigns spearheading the closure have come to agree that the institution needs to close however the size and continued approach to Borough Based jails is seen as a continued opportunity to deny many the constitutional right to the presumption of innocence, keeping the remand and bail reform approach distant from enjoying the liberties as those who can afford it. (https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-borough-jail-plan-too-big-20190906-ymjeda2kkvhnve5gz27anty6be-story.html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true)

The No New Jails CloseRikers idea does have some reasoning as it relates to the history of what is clear the Criminal Justice System took to the 13th Amendment critical loophole that left open many of the poor minority community to be victimized by the same racially motivated era of 1800's.  It cannot be discounted that we as a community of oppressed are faced with the possibility that the new jails leaves open the opportunity for a complete repeat of mass incarceration under approaches as those being pushed by Immigration Custom Enforcement practices that continue to plague the communities of color. Empty jail cells leaves opportunity for which we should be mindful would give an endemic system filling them solely for the reasons that the administration of Justice would deem as necessary evil over people control. There are 6,000 empty jail beds in NYC right now due to the people power campaigns that have lead to reduction in the jail population.  However, no new jails guarantees the same ole' jails that leaves many of the presently detained people exposed to the continued abuses while the process drags on which is why as Advocates and leaders in the crusade for change no one is to be left behind, including the presently detained that deserve dignified treatment till the campaign for changes has been ultimately successful.

CloseRikers BuildCommunities platform is where I started with campaigning for the closure of an institution that is at the center of brutal accolades of torture where those entrusted with securing the mass incarceration approach were and remain responsible for instituting brutality into the corrections era of pretrial detention. I recall a time that the NYCDOC would use such excuses as engaging in the tough on detainees approach toward correcting behavior that would somehow instill the prevention of recidivism that is responsible for the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder experienced by many today, hence Kalief Browder whose brutal time spent on Rikers Island for 3 years of unnecessary and unjustified pretrial detention embroiled his mental health to a breaking point leading sadly to the taking of his own will to live. Many still believe that the promotion of contraband into the institution was mainly controlled by the detainees however that is not the case. It is clear that Rikers Island instituted strict visiting practices that included the crucial intended interference or obstruction of such visiting privileges as a form of torturous approach to the detainees held there and their families with search practices that defy the logic of detainees being the primary source of promoting, keeping with how it was so easily formed to criminalize even the innocent families from enjoying the opportunity to maintain their own relationship with their siblings while equally being denied the presumption of innocence in criminal accusations. I agree with my colleague Marvin Mayfield that moving quickly to end the torture of Rikers Island is the right thing to do. "The time to close Rikers Island has passed but the best time to do it is now". (https://citylimits.org/2019/09/05/closing-rikers-the-10-major-concerns-that-emerged-at-the-public-hearing/)

Mental Health and Housing the Homeless is a crucial response to the closure of the institutions that have lead to the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affecting 1 in 5 Americans today, mostly the black and brown community impacted by the mass incarceration era, the closure of many community resources that was the turn around response by the Criminal Justice System to tough on crime eras of our time. These approaches by politics in response to hints in quality of life offenses leading to many of the Broken Window Policing and community Policing tactics is critically responsible for the masses of Homeless who are now being herded into many of the shelters run by failing non-profits who have corporate business approaches equal to those found in the mass incarceration approach of the Criminal Justice System. Re-entry programs and alternatives to incarceration being a greatest need to respond to the closure of Rikers Island and the expansion of Mental Health Resources such as Intense Mobile Treatment would be a big-up to reducing many of the people being unnecessarily held in jails and pretrial detention. During the hearings on Thursday, a Kings County Judge providing testimony to the panel reiterated the need for diversion for the Mentally ill and further provided that the closure must happen in the fastest timeline possible. Chemical dependency is an additional accolade of failure where the homeless people herded into such shelters run by organizations who are equally in treatment of chemically dependent people do not invest in internal treatment services rather then having them shunned out of the housing between the hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., treatment must be more then readily available for them within the shelters however such an idea for the corporations engaged in shelters see this as a threat to the numbers falling. Why fix a profit making system internally when the streets of idleness keeps the numbers going for the Non-Profit Shelter Conglomerates.

I am a formerly incarcerated formerly impacted who experienced every Post Traumatic Stress Disorder stemming from the years of abuses I personally experienced. Homelessness and self medicating to keep me from the realities of the tortures I have experienced I now turn my life into commitments toward the change that our future generations will need to prevent a repeat of hundreds of years of oppression. Criminalizing the mentally ill  must end! This must be the roadmap (https://citylimits.org/2019/09/04/opinion-if-it-approves-borough-jails-council-must-invest-in-mental-health/) necessary to healing the harm and fully recovering the losses by assuring a future absent any of the sort of oppression that will come to harm our children and future generations. Those of us who know Rikers Island are the people who need to leave the legacy of harm behind and a path to greater living conditions in this Country to be the norm.

For further info on the Blog please contact the author Victor M Herrera at Gapssolutions@outlook.com
https://gaps-solutions.ueniweb.com/
https://gaps-solutions.business.site/


excerpt

#CLOSErikers POSITION and MESSAGE TO CITY COUNCIL
re: borough based plan


We urge the City Council to support this land use proposal that will enable the
closure of Rikers, with the inclusion of the conditions we outline below.
The #CLOSErikers campaign is led by people who have personally experienced the horrors of
Rikers Island, and their voices are paramount in this process. They know that closing Rikers is
urgent, and cannot be delayed. We support building borough based facilities to enable the
fastest possible closure, and we ask the City Council to ensure that passing this plan comes along
with a commitment to invest in resources that support our communities and shrink the jail
population even further.

Rikers is the last penal colony in the United States, and you have the power to ensure its closure,
or to help ensure its continuation. We cannot stop or restart this process when we have the
potential to close Rikers by 2024. We cannot risk seeing the torture that happens at Rikers
continued indefinitely. We cannot leave anyone behind on Rikers Island.

1) THE CITY CAN REDUCE THE CAPACITY FOR WHICH IT IS BUILDING THESE
FACILITIES

a) The current City jail population is 7,200, and the City has committed to reducing it to
4,000 or below

b) The #CLOSErikers campaign knows that the City can further reduce our system wide jail
population to less than 3,000.

c) The City has already considered the effects of many charges becoming ineligible for bail
and for detention(effective January 1, 2020), and future parole supervision reform
(proposed in New York State legislature) to project a jail population below 4,000

d) By considering the effects of further changes in NYS bail laws - including the
requirements that judges consider supervised released for all cases when available, and
when bail is set, that judges must consider ability to pay, and offer three forms of bail, of
which unsecured or partially-secured bond must be one - the City can plan for 800 less
people in the jail system

e) To further reduce the jail population, the City Council can push for these commitments

i) A targeted $100 million investment in resources for people with serious mental
health needs, who currently account for 16% of the jail population. With this
investment, we believe the City can plan for at least 250 less people in the NYC
jail system on a given day, (after bail reform goes into affect).

ii) A targeted $37 million investment in alternatives to incarceration and
alternatives to detention. With this investment, the City can plan for 550 less
people in the NYC jail system on a given day. Funding should be focused on cases
that are harder to divert or where capacity of existing programs is especially
limited, including more serious charges, defendants with a higher level of need,
and/or people who do not fall into special populations that current ATI funding
targets. Programs should also be trauma-informed, and proven to provide those
involved not just with an alternative sentence, but with skills and resources to
lead more stable lives. The following distribution of funding could support these
goals, though flexibility for providers to design their programs in the ways they
know best should be prioritized as well:

(1) 10% of funds for lighter touch programs appropriate for people with a
lower level of need or less serious charges - $4000/participant, 700
participants
(2) 20% of funds for slightly more intensive programs, appropriate for
people with a higher level of need charges - $10,000/participant, 550
participants
(3) 30% of funds for intensive programs appropriate for serious or
statutorily violent charges - $18,500/participant, 440 participants
(4) 40% of funds for intensive programs for people with mental health and
supportive housing needs - $25,000/participant, 400 participants
(5) Additional capacity-building investment at 25% to help small but
effective providers better access funding

f) By decriminalizing sex work, the City can plan for 50 less people in the jail system

g) The separate facility for women should be completely separate, and the City should
explore options to repurpose buildings, in areas well-served by public transit, that could
house the 100 or so women who might remain in a secure facility after the above reforms
are enacted. This could reduce the capacity in the four proposed facilities by 100 overall,
and the size of each facility

h) Because there is some overlap among the effects of these reforms, we estimate their
combined effects would reduce the City jail population by about 4,300 people, bringing
the average daily jail population to less than 3,000.

2) THE CITY MUST COMMIT THAT THESE FACILITIES WILL NOT ONLY BE
DESIGNED DIFFERENTLY BUT OPERATED DIFFERENTLY

a) As long as any person is held in secure detention in New York City, the City must create
facilities with the least restrictive conditions. People can not be locked in cells or cages,
and definitely not in solitary.
b) The people managing and running the facilities would have to be capable of and willing to
provide a healing environment. The Department of Corrections cannot and will not do
that. It’s an entire agency built on a model of punishment. In the past several years, even
under a Federal monitor and with a shrinking jail population, violence in City jails is
increasing. The Department of Corrections (DOC) has proven themselves to be unable
and unwilling to end the culture of violence that consumes Rikers Island.
c) For facilities to serve the purpose of healing or rehabilitation, the people held there would
need to mostly interact with staff who are trained for that purpose. Staff who serve a
security function - like DOC - must not be in housing areas. If they have any role, it would
be only at entrances and exits. As the Officer’s Union president said himself “ We’re not
mental-health workers, we’re not social workers...We’re the police of the jails.” ‘The
police’ cannot run the new facilities. Community-based secure facilities under different
management structures already exist in other cities and states.
d) Along with this, we need a complete shift in language to be more humanizing. The City
should remove the words ‘inmate’ and ‘offender’ from all City documents, guides,
training, and practice. People must be called people, and treated as people.
e) These facilities must be designed to drive themselves out of existence. We have every
reason to think the number of people incarcerated in this city will continue to drop - that
has been the trend over the past twenty-plus years, and a trend which could be
accelerated even faster by the kinds of investments we’re calling for in our
#buildCOMMUNITIES campaign. As that happens, there should be a commitment to
switch detention areas over to other community uses. Visit:
jlusa.org/buildCOMMUNITIES

3) THE CITY MUST COMMIT TO INVESTMENTS IN COMMUNITIES
a) These facilities provide a way to reduce harm by shrinking the system and improving
conditions. But we know the change we truly seek is an investment in our communities.
b) New York City has robbed poor communities of color of vast resources over many decades
by relying on incarceration as the solution to drug use, mental health needs and poverty.
c) This plan has the potential to save more than $500 million dollars per year, which must
be invested all of the things that have been proven to create true public safety — including
expansive affordable and supportive housing and programs that address educational,
employment and mental health needs outside of the carceral system. Even before the
savings from this plan are realized, the City could begin justice reinvestment by divesting
from policing and incarceration, and investing in the kinds of community resources
outlining in our #buildCOMMUNITIES platform.

4) THE CITY MUST BEGIN DEMOLISHING EMPTY BUILDINGS ON RIKERS

a) The 2018 “Worst Offenders” report from the State Commission on Corrections indicated
that there are at least 5,400 empty jail beds on Rikers Island.

b) The City can transfer the remaining population to a few facilities and begin demolishing
those that are empty, with a focus on the best possible care and conditions for the people
being transferred.

For further info, please contact Brandon Holmes, Campaign Coordinator, brandon@jlusa.org