Advocates call on courts to cut back on the number of New Yorkers they send to Rikers

The Campaign to Close Rikers recently released a policy brief arguing the court system should do more to keep from sending detainees to Rikers Island pretrial. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye

By Jacob Kaye

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.”

The policy brief from the Campaign to Close Rikers comes a little more than a month after the City Council-appointed Independent Rikers Commission issued its long-anticipated report mapping the steps the city needs to take to close Rikers. Though the commission found that the city has fallen so far behind on its original plan to close the dangerous and deadly jails that it won’t likely be able to close them by the legally-mandated 2027 deadline, it issued a number of recommendations the city could take to accelerate the jails’ closure.

The new report from the Campaign to Close Rikers attempts to build on the commission’s blueprint, diving specifically into the role the judicial system plays in the city’s jails.

Around 85 percent of all detainees held on Rikers are awaiting trial on bail, a practice that “precipitate[s] the loss of housing, employment and future income,” according to the report. The authors of the brief also argued that holding defendants pretrial on Rikers is an even more dangerous practice. Over the last four years, nearly 40 people have died while being held in the Department of Correction’s custody, or after having just been released from it.

The Campaign to Close Rikers called on the court system to assess its current judicial practices when it comes to bail and make sure bail isn’t being overused, or used as a de facto remand.

They also called on court leadership to train judges on the city’s defendant release assessment tool, the role racial bias places in judicial decisions, and the legal purpose of bail, which, in New York, can only be set as a means to ensure a defendant returns to court.

The group also recommended that the court system ensure that when judges are newly assigned to arraignment parts that they have access to training documents and studies about pretrial detention in New York, and that the courts regularly hold bail reviews to ensure that judicial decisions regarding bail were made within the bounds of the law.

The recommendations come after the courts have recently launched a series of steps that they say will help cut back on the population ballooning on Rikers.

In October, court officials released a series of “case management innovations” centered around the idea that district attorneys, judges and defense attorneys should make a more concerted effort to move along cases in which a defendant is being held in jail.

During a March City Council hearing, the city’s district attorneys said the pilot program was showing signs of success.

“What we've seen during the implementation of this program is that we have been able…to resolve cases,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said during the hearing. “We're starting to move cases a little more quickly, meaning that they're not being upheld and delayed.”

“It's shown a lot of promise,” he added.

But the Campaign to Close Rikers said there’s more work to be done.

“Ultimately, the cost of needless pretrial detention borne by taxpayers parallels the heartbreaking human cost if New York City does not seize the opportunity its leaders and residents possess to launch wide-ranging, data-driven reforms starting today,” the report read. “Since judges’ pretrial decisions determine how many New Yorkers continue to languish needlessly at Rikers, it is imperative that policymakers launch strategies expressly designed to improve judicial outcomes.”