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NYC councilmembers urge Mayor Adams to reduce Rikers Island's female population
By
Samantha Max
Published Apr 18, 2024
Modified Apr 19, 2024
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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
By
Samantha Max
Published Apr 18, 2024
Modified Apr 19, 2024
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More than 15 female members of the New York City Council are urging Mayor Eric Adams to reduce the number of women incarcerated in city jails in the future, following a Gothamist analysis of more than 700 lawsuits from women claiming they were sexually assaulted on Rikers Island over the last five decades.
A new letter from the councilmembers addresses the number of beds that will be available for female detainees in the borough-based jails the city is required to build to replace the Rikers Island complex. Earlier this year, Gothamist reported that the Adams administration plans to expand the number of beds in the planned jails, including more than tripling the spaces for female detainees from 126 to 450.
The councilmembers who signed the letter are calling on the mayor to change that plan. Sandy Nurse, who chairs the Council's criminal justice committee and spearheaded the letter, said she was struck by the volume of cases reported by Gothamist and the allegations of a former detainee who said correction officers used to walk her and other women to a secluded part of the Rikers complex late at night and force them to perform oral sex.
“It’s just bad policy to plan to have more women in detention,” Nurse said in a statement. “We should be laser-focused on protecting and empowering women through preventative social programs, family violence prevention and supportive housing.”
Adams’ office said it has received the letter and plans to respond. After Gothamist published its investigation last month, the mayor called for a “thorough investigation” into the allegations.
The hundreds of lawsuits were filed under the Adult Survivors Act, a state law that opened a one-year window to file sexual assault claims beyond the statute of limitations. A Gothamist analysis of the lawsuits detailed what former detainees and their lawyers have described as a long-standing culture of sexual predation in the Rikers women’s jail, the Rose M. Singer Center, including groping, forced oral sex and rape.
The Council voted in 2019 to shut down Rikers and replace it with four smaller jails in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. But the plan has stalled as the deadline gets closer, even amid high rates of violence and the looming threat of a federal takeover. The average daily population in city jails this year has hovered over 6,000, while the borough-based jails were initially slated to house only 3,300 people. Adams has repeatedly asked lawmakers to give judges more discretion to set bail and keep dangerous people in jail while they await trial.
About 370 women are currently in city custody, accounting for about 6% of the jail population, according to official data analyzed by the nonprofit Vera Institute for Justice.
Expanding the number of beds at the planned jails “is what we must do to protect public safety, provide humane conditions for those in custody, and close the jails on Rikers Island,” mayoral spokesperson Liz Garcia told Gothamist in February. “There is simply no other path forward.”
The councilmembers who signed the letter to Adams criticized him for cutting funding to programs they say could help women as the number of female detainees has increased since he took office.
“What are the plans to keep incarceration down?” Councilmember Althea Stevens said in an interview. “How do we ensure that that ultimate goal of the decarceration plan is still uplifted?”
The letter also noted that a disproportionate share of women incarcerated at the Rose M. Singer Center have mental illness or are survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Councilmember Nantasha Williams said the city should be doing more to address the traumas of women in its custody — not compound them. She said the hundreds of Adult Survivors Act lawsuits alleging sexual assault in the women’s jail point to “gross negligence” by officials who are supposed to keep detainees safe.
“When you think of the conditions at Rikers Island — whether it’s women, whether it’s young adults, males, the deaths that have occurred at Rikers — we know that the inhumane conditions are very real,” she said. “I think this is just yet another indication.”
Matt Katz contributed reporting.
This story has been updated with a response from the mayor's office.
Tagged
new york city
public safety
Politics
eric adams
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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