Today, the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid Caucus (BALA), Color Of Change, the Freedom Agenda of the Urban Justice Center, VOCAL-NY, elected officials, impacted New Yorkers and others, marked the last day of Black History Month, by holding a rally outside the gates of Rikers Island calling on judges, District Attorneys, elected officials and others to immediately facilitate the decarceration of the city’s jails. 

The rally came amid continued reports of the harsh treatment and ongoing suffering of Black and Latinx New Yorkers, who make up 90 percent of people held in the City’s jails. In 2021 alone, 16 New Yorkers lost their lives in city jails and individuals still lack access to critical medical care. 

Activists have already called on local officials to put an end to this mass incarceration crisis, demanding that New York City District Attorneys take immediate action to reduce the population. Despite this, officials continue to remand and apply bail to New Yorkers who are presumed innocent, subjecting them to pretrial detention for weeks, months and even years at a time.  

Today’s action also comes as Mayor Eric Adams has called on Albany lawmakers to enact a “dangerousness” provision to New York’s bail statute, further empowering judges to continue their unfair, biased practices that further entrench communities of color in the criminal legal system. Earlier this week, Albany lawmakers rightly rejected the Mayor’s plea to reform these historic pretrial reforms that were ushered into law in 2019 with wide-ranging support. Activists gathered to ensure that efforts to defend the rights of New Yorkers do not stop there.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the inhumane conditions that have existed on Rikers Island for the past several decades. In the last year alone, sixteen New Yorkers have died on Rikers Island as a result of the inhumane conditions there. This says nothing of the physical, mental, and emotional traumas suffered by those detainees fortunate enough to survive their stay,” said Julia Jenkins, a representative of BALA. “How many more people must die before New York City’s leadership addresses this ongoing humanitarian crisis? Pretrial detention should not be a death sentence. Release those detained, and close Riker’s now,” 

“Rikers Island is New York City’s most obvious badge of slavery,” added BALA’s Zamir Ben-Dan. “The time is long overdue for it to be eliminated.”