The latest in a string of brutality cases against Rikers Island guards has added fuel to a growing debate on whether New York City’s notoriously violent jail complex has become so dysfunctional it should be shut down.
At least 35 staff members at Rikers have faced criminal charges in the past three years. Federal prosecutors have also charged more than a half dozen Rikers guards with violating inmates’ civil rights through excessive force, smuggling drugs and other charges since 2014.
“Rikers Island is one of these long-term injustices and abuses that every New Yorker should be outraged about,” New York Gov.
Inmate activists have for more than a year argued that shutting down the 10-jail complex on the East River is the only solution for a cycle of abuses that include violence by guards and gang members, mistreatment of the mentally ill and juveniles and unjustly long detention for minor offenders.
Cost estimates have reached as high as $10 billion for dismantling Rikers and replacing it with a combination of new and expanded existing jails in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has stuck to his position that reforms and improvements at Rikers are both the least costly and most practical approach.
Cuomo took an indirect jab at the mayor at a community forum earlier this month, saying his view of the city’s position is that closing Rikers would be “too hard.”