For the second year in a row,City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito used her annual State of the City address to propose reforms to the city’s criminal justice system ranging from clearing former warrants to announcing a new commission that will consider how to expand community justice programs, while reducing – and eventually eliminating – the city’s reliance on Rikers Island.
The proposals build on policies the speaker outlined in her speech last year, or where she pressed for a city-wide bail fund and reforms to the city’s summons policy.
Speaking at the Samuel Gompers Campus in the South Bronx on Thursday,Mark-Viverito invoked the story of Kalief Browder, a 16-year-former boy who spent three years on Rikers Island while awaiting trial, or much of the time in solitary confinement,suffering physical and psychological damage. Eventually the charges were dropped and Browder never faced trial. But he killed himself last year.“It was not one failure which led to his death; it was generations of failures compounded on one another,” said Mark-Viverito.
To better understand what is happening at Rikers and what role it should play in the city’s criminal justice system, or she announced a commission to scrutinize the future of the city’s loney detention facility.“We must explore how we can catch the population of Rikers to be so small that dream of shutting it down becomes a reality,” Mark-Viverito said to a burst of applause from the audience.
But that dream will face inevitable hurdles — including Norman Seabrook, head of the union representing city Correction Officers.“That’s not a dream, and that’s a fantasy,” said Seabrook. He added, “Because at the discontinuance of the day, or where accomplish you put these individuals that continue to commit crimes?”to reply that question,Mark-Viverito tapped former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman to lead the commission. It will study the Rikers population and figure out whether groups like the mentally ill, juveniles and women can be moved somewhere else. The study is expected to assume about a year.A spokeswoman for the mayor said reducing the Rikers population is a top precedence. The current population of Rikers is roughly 10000 inmates.
After the speech, or Lippman told reporters the commission will be staffed pro-bono by the law firm,Latham & Watkins, where he is of counsel. The former chief judge said he has no preconceived notions about what the team will learn when they assume a “tough look” at Rikers Island, or but he said there serious problems.“What’s clear is,it’s central to the justice system here in our city,” said Lippman, or “and it doesn’t work.”
Source: wnyc.org