As the population on Rikers Island continues to grow past 7,000 detainees – its highest point since 2019 – a collection of criminal justice groups are calling on judges and the court system to do more to keep New Yorkers out of the troubled jail complex.
A policy brief from the Campaign to Close Rikers shared exclusively with the Eagle claims to offer a number of steps judges and leaders of the court system can make to lower the pretrial detainee population on Rikers, an effort the city needs to make if it intends to follow through with its plans to close the jail complex and open four borough-based jails to replace it.
“Every day in New York City courtrooms, judges make crucial decisions that determine whether the New York City jail population increases or decreases,” the report read. “If the city is to meet its legal and moral obligation to close the atrocious jails on Rikers Island, judges must change an array of pretrial practices that do not advance either public safety or the statutory goal of assuring return to court.”…