NYC jail complex to be restored into citywide green energy hub
movemnt.net
movemnt.net
So take this article with an enormous grain of salt. And ymmv, but articles that simultaneously play to green energy projects (good thing) and carceral reform (good thing, more complicated in reality) are likely high-minded click-bait.
The abolish prisons before neighborhoods are actually safe thing is... ridiculous. You have to uplift the communities before you can have a jail free system. You can't just jump straight to jail free.
Most of the "abolish prison" types appear to be the super left wing which is like.... not a lot of NYC and mostly concentrated in Manhattan (hence Adam's win in all the other boroughs).
I'm hoping, if done well, and with out treating minorities like shit, that the NYPD being all over the subway will be effective in making NYers feel safe on the subway again (I think the crime wave was a bit overblown but it did get a bit seedier for sure), and maybe get the NYPD and the communities to a decent place.
That'd be a nice win for the city.
At least with the subway in LA the way the cops currently patrol it is pretty useless. I've seen four cops talking amongst themselves about 100 feet just on the other side of a stairwell from where someone was using a creme brule torch to light up a glass pipe for their buddy in the middle of the train platform. I see hard drugs smoked probably once or twice a week and I'm going during the 9-5, I can't imagine how much more is smoked during off peak hours when the stations are much more dead.
It seems like subway security is better solved by just having someone sit in a room looking at all the camera feeds in the station (there are already cameras everywhere on every corner but evidently they aren't used for much), seeing when someone is clearly hitting a crack rock or prying into a maintenance power outlet, and sending someone down to respond to what was seen on the video feed just now. Otherwise, people aren't dumb, they will just quiet down when they see a cop and start acting out again as soon as the cop is out of sight or earshot. Cops will also not care to do anything unless they literally saw it occur in front of their eyes, so having them be directed by a video operator at least serves as a record.
It seems like cops in California at least are pretty ambivalent about doing any sort of petty policing, in stark contrast to the cops out east. Here in California I've never seen anyone pulled over on the highways at all. Meanwhile out east, I know people who've been pulled over for going a few mph over, or hanging out in the left lane too long, or "swerving" allegedly, and going on to see their vehicles searched with their possessions tossed to the side of the road like they are at a gestapo checkpoint. If they are walking outside late at night the cop rolls up slow and follows them for some time, then flicks their lights on to ask them where they think they are heading at this time, hoping to stick a public intoxication charge or follow up on a warrant presumably. There's definitely some happy medium between not enforcing the law at all and having a fascist power complex to ruin people's lives using the law, and I hope saner times in the future strike that balance.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-04/is-it-saf...
We'll see if it's any different this time. I think it's in response to the uptick described in that article.
Sucks if you jump a turnstile in front of a police officer, they'll certainly stop you for that stuff.
We can’t close Rikers because NIMBYs veto new smaller jail locations, prison abolitionists also block them, and law and order types want Rikers to stay open.
We can’t build housing because NIMBYs block new development, DSA types hate any private development and fight it, and the narrow slice ultra-conservative types don’t want the mandatory affordable units …
It’s just awful, and we can’t have nice things as a result.
[*EDIT] It's funny that people will reflexively downvote this because they identify with a political camp that I'm complaining about but won't offer a dissenting opinion. I'm happy to get into specific example of great projects that have been hobbled by these various groups.
Example: I agree with Republicans on some things, like prosecuting thieves which my local (Seattle) Democrats don't care about. But if I were to publicly state my interest in anything right-aligned, my peers would round me all the way up and think I hate women or something.
Rikers is another example where the prison abolitionists are coming together with law and order types who like Rikers. It makes no sense for these leftist prions abolitionists to partner with MAGA types in Staten Island but here we are.
We obviously need some jails, but at the same time your incarceration rate in NYC is 5x higher than my city. Would reducing jail sentence terms and providing some leniency at sentencing not be an option? Is everybody just a hardened criminal over there?
edit:
I know you mention this
> carceral reform (good thing, more complicated in reality)
It's obviously not as simple as just "reduce jail terms", but it seems like the thing to demand when your government is jailing such a huge amount of the population comparatively. Even when you compare against 3rd world and authoritarian countries it's just too large of a number -- it can't be that the Americans are just built so they commit crime more. Why would you not want more of your citizens to live fuller, more accomplished lives rather than rotting in shitty prisons?
- don't live here (it appears you live in Europe?) - don't know anything about the local politics - don't want to listen when anyone tries to tell them - don't know much about the justice system (including the difference between jail vs prison) - use ham-fisted statistics like national incarceration rates but... - don't account for enormous variables (hint: guns), or... - weighting of prior sentences (it's a rolling average obviously)
But surprise! they want to squeeze every story into a large conversation so they can take the moral high ground against straw man arguments no one was making. Like this one:
> Why would you not want more of your citizens to live fuller, more accomplished lives rather than rotting in shitty prisons?
You took time out of your day to write that comment to some that told you they supported carceral reform. Heck, you even quoted me saying that I wanted carceral reform and thought "Nah, this guy needs my input about on whether we should let people rot in prison."
Here's a policy recommendation: don't run your mouth on topics you don't know much about. Greetings from New York.
Instead of trying to treat the conversation as having value to both parties it became another instant for you to come in and moralize about a situation you don’t understand.
How incredibly arrogant of you.
(I suppose you think being called out on your arrogance is also “uncivilized”; once more you would be wrong)
> they want to squeeze every story into a large conversation so they can take the moral high ground against straw man arguments
> Here's a policy recommendation: don't run your mouth on topics you don't know much about
I am not insane in thinking this is an abrasive way of presenting one's arguments.
We can be civil and yet abrasively disagree. That’s… sort of the point of civility.
If you can’t handle discussing ideas or accept that you might offend others with your ignorance then perhaps don’t engage in conversations.
So the thinking goes.
Reforming the justice process depends on the will of the electorate. Since the above sentiment is so core to the American culture and values, it's not likely to change much.
It seems like they are waisting time and resources with dreams while neglecting basic needs.
Some of them get to vote, too. https://www.nyclu.org/en/know-your-rights/voting-criminal-re...
"Misdemeanors do not impact your right to vote. You may still register and vote if you are in jail for a misdemeanor or are awaiting trial..."
Rikers is down about 50%-75% in occupancy since 1991 and there's a similar big dip in crime.
Distributed jails just make financial sense, though there's lots of other "progressive" reasons to make the change too.
Rikers was opened in 1932. It's seen far higher crime rates than this year's.
Murders, for example, are 1/4 what they were in the '90s: https://twitter.com/brianpmangan/status/1588275665350012928
Coverage of crime, though, disproportionately spiked, which is likely why folks think crime is high: https://twitter.com/brianpmangan/status/1588277958556274688
> It's hard to understand why you would want to close one jail and open 4 smaller jails further away.
Further away from what?
The intent (https://rikers.cityofnewyork.us/) is to bring prisoners into newer facilities closer to their families.
However, if we look at the NYPD data [0], you can see that rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and car theft are all up by 14.4%, 34.4%, 25%, 2.2%, 45.3%, and 52.7% respectively over the last 2 years. Over the last 12 years, rape is up 22%, felony assault is over 50%, grand larceny up 37% and car theft up 30%.
How can you look at this data and say this is just a media narrative?
[0] https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statisti...
Of particular note, your data shows that all of the city's current crime numbers are still lower than 2001's, which was Giuliani's final and best year in office.
Like is your argument really "Well crime still isn't as bad as it was in the 90s so it's ok"?
I'm a huge proponent of criminal justice reform. I hate cash bail, the drug war, over criminalization, and militarized policing. That said, NYPD needs to get off its collective ass on go solve murders, assaults, rapes, and grand larceny cases. The best deterrent for crime that we know of is the assurance that you will be caught.
There is simultaneously no reason that the NYPD should have a foreign intelligence unit and crime labs are underfunded.
Why are we talking about crime in the early 90s? The original discussion started with nonethewiser saying "Not to mention crime has been increasing..." This statement doesn't have anything to do with crime in the 90s. ceejayoz then replied that rising crime is a media narrative and brought up crime in the 90s. This is a total straw man argument. No one is asserting that crime is as bad as it was in the 90s.
Because that's when violent crime peaked, and there's ongoing discussion now about moving back to criminal justice policies from that era. It's useful to compare current data to that time period to the uptick of the last 3 years and ask ourselves if we really want or need the same response today.
My point of view is that there are lessons to be drawn from the past.
Analyzing crime rates over a couple of years is fraught with sampling bias. E.g. there was an 83% decrease in mass shootings between 2018 and 2020, does that mean those aren't a problem anymore?
This makes my point. Rykers has almost double the capacity of the 4 proposed jails combined.
Rikers was sufficient when crime was 4x as high.
Multiple issues come to my mind:
- the larger the facility, the greater the chance of riots or unrest escalating
- it is more difficult to maintain different standards of imprisoning (low, middle and high security) in one complex
- it may be infeasible to renovate an existing building to current code and requirements while it's still being occupied, if it is at all possible (e.g. floor plan layout changes tend to be difficult to modify in prisons as the walls are very thick)
- smaller prisons spread across the country can make it easier for prisoners' relatives across the state to visit them, which usually leads to lower recidivism as prisoners can still keep contact with family
This is a solved problem. It's really not hard to segregate the various populations. We do this every day.
> it may be infeasible to renovate an existing building
Likely true.
> smaller prisons spread across the country can make it easier for prisoners' relatives across the state to visit them
Arguably true. Tablet-based video visits have changed the workload on family members. That said, the reduced burden on friends & family that don't want to engage in video visits is significant.
Hard to manage also means hard to scrutinize.
1. There's a severe shortage of guards. Anything that could make working in the jails more attractive will help, and a 2-hour commute is not attractive.
2. Getting medical service, prisoners with court dates, lawyers, etc. on and off the island is really really slow.
3. The jail has insourced a lot of services (for example they run a large bakery). These get staffed by corrections officers. This both makes staffing harder, and the existence of these plum positions has weird effects on the politics of the corrections union (people with power in the union are not actually working as guards and are out of touch with the reality of the jail)
Moving to a model like the Tombs, with the jail directly above the courthouse, makes way more sense.
In addition, the buildings on the island need a serious revamp (e.g. there is no automatic access control, so every major door needs a guard physically standing there to let people through and climate control is broken). As long as you need to seriously renovate anyway, might as well just build a new jail where it should have been put in the first place.
Source: I read a lot of blogposts.
> A 1972 study on visitation that followed 843 people on parole from California prisons found that those who had no visitors during their incarceration were six times more likely to be reincarcerated than people with three or more visitors.
> In Travis County, Texas, there was an escalation of violence and contraband after that jail switched from offering both video calls and visitation for a few years, to banning in-person visitation altogether.
There are also behavioral changes generated by a pending visit:
> According to one study, misconduct tended to decrease in the three weeks before a visit. This may explain why more frequent visits lead to more consistent good behavior, better overall outcomes and post-release success.
[0] https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-co...
That stood out to me.
Which is still an incredibly high staffing ratio.
We are seeing the triumph of the unions here.
Incidentally this is what I meant above, about the union being out of touch: unlimited sick leave makes staffing unpredictable, which makes work unpredictable and frankly dangerous, which makes guards take more sick leave in a vicious cycle. The union has weaker-than-expected motivations to fix this, because everyone with seniority does not actually work in the housing blocks.
"designed" is a bit generous... It's a hodge-podge of facilities built over time as need arose with little consideration of long-term planning or a comprehensive strategy for the complex.
Opening new facilities makes it easier to deal with the union and fix the administrative processes. The management can transfer people and be slightly more selective to encourage and punish. Also, they can hire actual administrative staff instead of having COs working as clerks, etc.
* the court systems are at the county level, not city, and so everyone being at Rikers means that you have to transport people to court, lawyers and families have to travel far from their homes, etc. The county courthouses for each borough are much more centrally located than Rikers
* Rikers is simultaneously not near anything and also on prime land. LGA has really bad capacity constraints, Rikers is the next closest piece of land available and the East River between it is very shallow
As to transporting people to court they should switch to Zoom instead.
It can easily take an hour to drive from Rikers to Downtown Brooklyn or Jamaica, where two of the five courthouses are.
This is happening. Same with video visits. The reform movement for Riker's started well before these were realities for the majority of inmates.
1. Sits on top of a former landfill
2. Is adjacent to LaGuardia Airport
Thus, there aren't many good options for redevelopment. Green energy/industry is definitely one of the best possible moves
What do you mean by that?
If there isn’t civilian oversight what is there? It’s nothing to do with the military is it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_oversight_of_law_enfo...
Even worse than that, they're locked up indefinitely before trial.
https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/8/17/23310771/why-some-spend-ye...
> But several men have been on Rikers Island and in other city Department of Correction jails as their criminal cases snake their way through the court system for years — in one case a decade and counting — according to a list of the longest-serving detainees in city custody obtained by THE CITY.
Not painting with a large brush but a lot of them are very dangerous and it seems, with reform bail they let the door open to a lot of violent crime, at least here in NY it's shot up through the roof. I'm definitely for reform but reform done responsibly and not rushed either, because I could see this backfiring even worse.
All of the actual solutions are hard and expensive but that's how it is. Thoughtlessly letting career criminals go so they commit 3 more crimes before the trial for the first one isn't the more compassionate move. To the net public at least.
Same deal with closing mental institutions in the 1980s without an alternative.
Bail reform in NY just means poor people have the same right to get out of jail while pending trial that rich people already had.
That is clearly wrong and should not happen. However, many dangerous violent criminals (recidivists) get bailed out and continue their crime sprees. That is clearly something that should not happen. I'm all for reforming this system but this should be done responsibly.
This is not a problem fixed by cash bail, though.
"You're dangerous and violent! If you have $5k we'll let you go home. If you're poor, enjoy Rikers for the next six months."
> The data now reflect: 2 percent of the nearly 100,000 cases related to the state’s changed bail laws, between July 2020 and June 2021, led to a rearrest on a violent felony while another case was pending. That’s down from nearly 4 percent from the prior data set.
> Less than one-half a percent of cases led to someone being rearrested for a violent felony with a firearm — or 429 cases.
[1] https://www.timesunion.com/state/article/GOP-calls-into-ques...
It seems to me the criminal justice system is openly and flagrantly violating the constitution, and has been for a long time.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/may/23/us-supreme-court...
> In a 6 to 3 ruling, the newly-dominant rightwing majority of the nation’s highest court barred federal courts from hearing new evidence that was not previously presented in a state court as a result of the defendant’s ineffective legal representation.
If they're comfortable executing innocents, they're unlikely to care about timely trials.
Eliminating pretrial detention would force prosecutors to ensure the right to a speedy trial if, in fact, the accused is dangerous.