NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — With President Joe Biden expected to make a visit to New York City next week, a group of public defenders encouraged him Thursday to visit Rikers Island to "see firsthand" the "unmitigated humanitarian crisis that has no end in sight."
"President Joseph Biden’s visit to New York City is an opportunity for this nation’s leader to witness firsthand the horrendous conditions New Yorkers endure each day on Rikers Island—conditions that should serve as a reminder of why incarceration is not a panacea for public safety concerns," a joint statement signed by The Legal Aid Society, The Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn Defender Services, New York County Defender Services, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and Queens Defenders said.
Biden is due to meet with Mayor Eric Adams in Manhattan next Thursday to discuss strategies to combat a violence across the city, most recently highlighted by the fatal shootings of two NYPD officers and the death of a 40-year-old woman who was shoved in front of a Times Square subway.
However, the groups argue that Biden's focus should also be on Rikers Island, which has suffered staffing shortages, overcrowding, inmate protests over COVID-19 conditions and more than 15 deaths last year.
"At a time when people are consistently denied basic medical and mental health care and are enduring inhumane and dangerous conditions, including an alarming increase in COVID-19 cases, we should be moving towards immediate decarceration," the groups said.
They added, "Focusing instead on discredited punitive and surveillance-based approaches that feed mass incarceration and send even more people into facilities that cannot keep them safe demeans democracy and endangers everyone. This should alarm all elected officials."
Sources told The New York Post that conditions on the island were the same as before, even with Luis Molina's new leadership, though he has reportedly sought to encourage staff to return to work among other options to make Rikers safer.
1010 WINS reached out to the Department of Correction for comment.
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