**PRESS RELEASE**
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Contact: Yonah Zeitz – 347-201-2768 yonah@katalcenter.org,
Follow online: #ShutRikers #CutShutInvestNY | @katalcenter | shutriker.org
Katal Joins Community Groups In Protest of Mayor Adams’s State of the City Address
Demands Include Shutting Down Rikers and Making Deep Investments in True Public Safety: Housing, Health Care, Education, and Jobs
New York, NY – Today, Katal and other community groups protested Mayor Eric Adams at his fourth Mayoral State of the City address at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Mayor Adams’s “jail-first” approach to public safety continues to lavishly fund the NYPD and DOC while cutting funding for essential services like our public schools, homeless and housing services, libraries, mental health services, services for the aging, and other critical programs that harm marginalized communities.
In an interview earlier week framing the governing agenda for his 2025 re-election, Adams calls for further roll backs to the bail and discovery reform – which would lead to more low-income New Yorkers being held at Rikers. Adams also, again, trashed the city law to close Rikers as an example of “not real policies” – even though the city passed a law to close Rikers in 2019.
While Adams makes keeping Rikers open – and sending more people to be jailed there – the central planks of his governing agenda, the jail complex remains dangerous and a disaster for those jailed there, those who work there, and for our entire City. The Department of Correction is rife with violence, chaos, and gross mismanagement. That’s among the many reasons why a federal judge is poised to appoint an independent federal receiver to oversee Rikers and improve conditions there.
At today’s rally, groups and community members demand that Mayor Adams cut the city’s jail population and the budgets used for caging people, shut down Rikers Island, and invest in real public safety: housing, health care, education, and jobs.
Statements from impacted people and community groups:
Samuel Sainplice, Member of the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice: “The conditions at Rikers Island are deplorable. Mayor Adams has been hellbent since day one to put more Black, brown, and low-income people behind bars. He’s been doing this to take the city further away from shutting down Rikers. We refuse to allow this Mayor to get away with putting New Yorkers in harm’s way. He must shut down Rikers immediately to make amends for all the injustices it has brought upon so many people and their families. At a time when so many of us are struggling to find housing, the Mayor must stop funding the NYPD Department of Corrections and invest in affordable housing!”
Melanie Dominguez, Organizing Director at Katal, said: “As Adams enters his fourth year in office as the Mayor of New York City, it is shameful that he continues to refuse to address the ongoing crisis at Rikers. Throughout his time in office, violence at Rikershas has worsened, and at least 33 New Yorkers have died behind bars. At a time when immediate action is needed, Adams has done everything he can to systematically stymie efforts to reduce the jail population and follow the city law to shut Rikers. To make matters worse, he has repeatedly publicly trashed the city’s law to close Rikers and has labeled it as an example of ‘not real policies.’ Adams has gone on record multiple times, stating that it is impossible to close Rikers because of the increase in the city’s jail population. Even though this increase in the jail population is a direct result of his policies. Since day one, the mayor has continued to implement regressive policies that have caused so much harm to Black, Brown, and low-income New Yorkers. He has called for further rollbacks to the bail and discovery reform. As a former NYPD cop, Adams’ approach to public safety is increasing funding and empowering NYPD to continue with regressive policing policies from the Giuliani era, rooted in stop-and-frisk. Our communities have had enough of the lies and deceptions. We demand immediate action by Mayor Adams to shut down Rikers and invest in true community safety like housing, health care, education, and jobs.”
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