Thank you, Chair Sandy Nurse, for holding today’s Committee on Criminal Justice. My name is Yonah Zeitz and I am the New York Advocacy Director at the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice. We’re a Brooklyn-based organization with members from across the city and state, including people who have been incarcerated, family members of currently and formerly incarcerated people, and more. Many of our members know from experience exactly how horrific and deadly Rikers really is. All of us are deeply concerned by the ongoing disaster unfolding in the city’s jail system. We’ve been working to shut down Rikers since our founding in 2015.
The recent Lippman Commission report marshals an enormous body of evidence about the horrors, dysfunction, and waste at Rikers, and reiterates the urgent necessity that the jail complex must be shut down.[i] As such, I won’t reiterate those facts here. One of the most significant findings of the report, the one most highlighted in the press about the report findings, is that the City is far, far-off track from meeting the legal requirement to close Rikers by 2027. We’ve been saying this for years[ii] – including in repeated testimony before this Council[iii] – and now the Lippmann Commission is finally saying it too: under current conditions, Rikers will not be closed by 2027 as required by law.
But there are some glaring omissions in the report — it doesn’t meaningfully address why the plan is off track; or explicitly define who is responsible for this failure or explain what it means for New Yorkers, particularly those directly impacted by Rikers, that the mayor of our city is simply ignoring the closure law; or address steps the City Council should take to address that fact.
Yesterday, the Council filed suit against Mayor Adams over the decision to allow ICE back onto Rikers Island.[iv] We applaud this decision. Years ago, following the leadership from community groups across the city, the Council passed a law prohibiting ICE from operating at Rikers, and it’s right for the Council to aggressively use every tool at its disposal to hold the mayor accountable to the law and protect New Yorkers.
Where is this same energy when it comes to closing the Rikers Island Jail Complex? Where is this same energy to hold the mayor accountable to the law passed in 2019 to shut down Rikers by 2027? Community groups, including Katal, have been pleading with the Council for years to take bold action to hold this administration accountable to the closure law, to use every possible measure to ensure that the city would meet the 2027 deadline to close Rikers, including if necessary, holding up the city budget. But the Council has done little to hold the line on the 2027 closure law, even as the death toll continues its grisly rise under Mayor Adams.[v]
The Council’s inaction is one reason why a federal court is on the verge of taking control of Rikers away from the city by appointing an independent receiver to improve conditions at the island complex. And it’s why, at the state-level, legislation is moving to increase jail oversight and overhaul the State Commission of Correction which has the power to close Rikers Island.[vi] The consistent violations of the rights of incarcerated people and the ongoing crises unfolding in New York City jails is compelling action by other branches of government – why not here at the City Council?
Mayor Adams has made a regular practice of ignoring the previous recommendations from the Lippman Commission, and he’s ignoring the closure law itself. If the Council won’t hold the mayor accountable to follow the law and related administrative steps to close Rikers by 2027, then the Council bears responsibility, with the mayor, for the abandonment of the closure plan. Before spending any more time discussing the latest round of recommendations by the Lippman Commission, we urge the Council to get focused here by holding this mayor accountable to the law.
