|
| NEW YORK — Eight state lawmakers visited Rikers Island amid reports of unsafe and inhumane conditions. The visit comes as legislators await updates from three-way budget negotiations in which Governor Hochul is pushing civil rights rollbacks that would result in more people not being convicted of a crime being held at Rikers. |
| The unannounced visit was conducted by Senators Kristen Gonzalez (Senate District 59), Nathalia Fernandez (Senate District 34), Jabari Brisport (Senate District 25), and Assemblymembers Latrice Walker (Assembly District 55), Zohran Mamdani (Assembly District 36), Marcela Mitaynes (Assembly District 51), Phara Souffrant Forrest (Assembly District 57), & Tony Simone (Assembly District 75) with support from Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, Center for Community Alternatives, the campaign to Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) and HALT Solitary. |
| “I will begin another hunger strike on Easter Sunday in honor of all the people we spoke to today detained at Rikers and all the others locked up pretrial. What Gov. Hochul is trying to do with bail reform goes beyond rollbacks. She wants a wholesale dismantling of bail reform without a legal or empirical basis. So, I have to do what I have to do to keep New York State from filling jails with Black and brown people,” said Assembly Member Latrice Walker. |
| “Too often, the policy is debated in the abstract. Let us be clear: Rikers Island is the Governor’s proposal brought to life. 19 New Yorkers lost their lives at Rikers last year. The Governor’s proposals are a death sentence for many New Yorkers. We will have blood on our hands if we allow these bail policy changes to be made in the state budget. Since bail reform was enacted in 2019, the likelihood of rearrest for people out on bail has not increased by a single percentage point. What we have seen, however, is a campaign of fear and propaganda,” said Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani. |
| “‘Innocent until proven guilty’ is not a progressive idea but foundational to our nation. Yet our Governor wants to lock up more people who have not been found guilty of a crime. During our visit, I spoke with people who have been held at Rikers for literally years just waiting for their day in court; as though that were not a sufficiently egregious injustice, the conditions they’re being held in are stomach-churningly horrific. If the Governor has her way, the Rikers population will swell with people who have not been convicted of a crime, and these conditions will become even deadlier for our people being held there,” said Senator Jabari Brisport. |
| “Today, I joined a group of my colleagues to visit Rikers Island to see firsthand what’s occurring here, and I am appalled once again at the conditions that I have just witnessed. If the Governor were with us today and saw what we just saw, she would not be pushing draconian bail policies that will dramatically increase pretrial detention rates and further exacerbate the unconscionable humanitarian disaster unfolding 8 miles off the coast of New York City. When over 85% of the people being held in these filthy, overcrowded conditions have yet even to be found guilty by a jury of their peers, it becomes abundantly clear that we need more compassion, more resources, more treatment, and far fewer people languishing behind bars,” said Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest. |
| “Today, I joined a group of my colleagues to visit Rikers Island to see firsthand what’s occurring here, and I am appalled once again at the conditions that I have just witnessed. If the Governor were with us today and saw what we just saw, she would not be pushing draconian bail policies that will dramatically increase pretrial detention rates and further exacerbate the unconscionable humanitarian disaster unfolding 8 miles off the coast of New York City. When over 85% of the people being held in these squalid, overcrowded conditions have yet even to be found guilty by a jury of their peers, it becomes abundantly clear that we need more compassion, more resources, more treatment, and far fewer people languishing behind bars,” said Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest. |
| “Our job as legislators is to tackle real problems that face our constituents,” Assemblymember Tony Simone said. “The reality is, bail reform solved a problem; it didn’t create one. Sending more people to the humanitarian disaster that is Rikers Island is not a solution. The reforms passed in 2019 give protections to people unfairly targeted by the justice system, and the Senate and Assembly must stay strong to keep those reforms in place.” |
| “The Governor should follow these legislators, who are true community leaders. If she saw with her own eyes the pain, trauma, and inhumanity of Rikers Island, she could not continue to advocate for gutting the purpose of bail and sending more people into these cages just to score a political ‘win.’ I encourage the Senate and Assembly leaders to listen to their members and hold the line on bail,” said Alice Fontier, Managing Director of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. |
and then 