[music]

Melissa Haris-Perry: Hey, it's MHP, and this is The Takeaway. Starting on January 7th, about 200 of those detained at one jail facility at Rikers Island went on a partial hunger strike in hopes of drawing attention to the poor conditions at the jail, and also a lack of basic services.

Speaker 2: Right now we're on hunger strike and we have a list of reasonable things that we would like to bring to the table so we can get things rolling, such as law library and recreational and mental health service and medical, stuff like that. That we're not being afforded the basic mandatory minimum and standards for a human being.

Melissa Haris-Perry: That's a voicemail. One of the organizers of the hunger strike sent to the New York County Defender Services. You've probably heard of the infamous Rikers Island, which is the main jail complex for New York City, and because it's a jail complex most people there about 80% of the nearly 6,000 detainees are waiting for trial. They have not been convicted of a crime. Although the jail has long been characterized by dysfunction, brutal conditions, and violence, detainees and advocates say that Rikers is in its worst crisis since the 1990s. Here's Jan Ransom, a metro investigative reporter with the New York Times who's been following what's happening at Rikers.

Jan Ransom: Rikers is still very much in crisis. The jail system has been dealing with both the rise in coronavirus cases and ongoing staffing crisis where just earlier this month around 45% of officers and other uniformed staff were either not showing up to work or otherwise unavailable to work directly with detained people. This has caused a breakdown in the very basic functions of the jail system from being able to provide the people being held there with proper medical and mental health care, access to recreation, access to the law library, and even the ability to show up for their court cases.

This is something that has been going on for over 18 months now, roughly since the start of the pandemic, but some of the underlying problems in the jail system is something that has been going on for decades.

Melissa Haris-Perry: The hunger strike has since ended, but conditions seem to be a little improved. Although some detainees have reported to their lawyers that they've gained access to the law library, others have also reported retaliation from correctional officers in response to their protest and for speaking out.

Jan Ransom: As of now my understanding from speaking to some of the lawyers for the people who were participating in this, a detainee in one unit described that things had improved, that he had access to the law library, but detainees and some of the other units who were participating described being retaliated against and they describe instances in which what's known as the PRO team, these are officers who typically wear helmets and riot gear, have been entering people's cells and completely tossing them and confiscating things like underwear, t-shirts, socks, and confiscating those things.

The people who participated in the hunger strike believe this is directly in response to their effort to protest the conditions in the jails.

Melissa Haris-Perry: Along with poor conditions at the jail complex, rising COVID, and issues with correctional officers not showing up for work, violence is also increasing in the jail with reports of detainees hosting fights for entertainment with little intervention from the guards.

Jan Ransom: Stabbings and slashings have gone up. They are the highest in decades. The violence, despite there being the appointment of a federal monitor who has been overseeing reforms in the jails, violence has continued to go up and also the rate of the use of force by jail officers against detainees. The instance of this fight night that happened in a particular jail housing where a gang leader was essentially running the place, is the result of what I believe is decades of dysfunction that has culminated right now in what we're seeing.

This is a situation where the young man that was participating in this fight night did not feel like he had a choice, and when this was happening you could see officers on the floor watching but not intervening, and just begging the question of what is the state of the jail system now and how safe are the people there who are being detained in the system?

Melissa Haris-Perry: Last year, 16 people died in custody at Rikers, at least five died by suicide making 2021 the deadliest year since 2013. Let me say again. 80% of the people in this facility have not been found guilty of the crime they're being held for. For years, former mayor, Bill de Blasio had promised to close Rikers and open smaller Borough based facilities, but with a new mayor that may be put on hold.

Jan Ransom: Mayor Adams early on said that he was in support of the plan to close Rikers down, but he has disagreed with some of the locations for the new facility. That begs the question, what then? On top of that we've seen, especially with the increase in gun violence and the recent shootings throughout the city, and the deaths of two police officers, Mayor Adams has put forth an approach to the violence in a way that would likely lend itself to the jail population increasing.

That goes against the plan to close Rikers, which requires the city [unintelligible 00:06:18] the jail population down to some of the numbers that we saw earlier on in the pandemic when it reached around, I believe a little over 3,900 or so people. His policies are flying in the face of an effort to close Rikers. I think it remains to be seen how that will all play out.

[music]

Melissa Haris-Perry: Thank you, Jan Ransom, metro investigative reporter with the New York Times for your reporting.

[00:07:04] [END OF AUDIO]

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.