Rikers Island, one of the nation’s most notorious jails, is set to close. New York City’s island complex has been infamously bad, with inhumane conditions, violence, and one of the nation’s highest rates of solitary confinement. There's broad-based agreement that the facility needs to close; the question of what to do next, however, is far more divisive. As part of its plan to close Rikers, the New York City Council has voted to build four new jails, a move that many activists have decried as infrastructure for the system to continue locking people up. "If they build it, they will fill it," say members of NYC's No New Jails, prison abolitionists who see the fundamental premises of our criminal justice system as flawed, and who think we should end incarceration altogether.
It's a seemingly radical position — but these activists aren't alone in believing that new jail construction is a questionable move. In fact, one of the first places where incarceration facilities were closed without replacement was the then-Republican controlled state of Texas in 2007. And many conservative reformers continue to argue against new construction. Brooke speaks with David Dagan, a postdoctoral scholar at The George Washington University and co-author of Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration, about why so many conservatives have changed positions on criminal justice reform. Then, she speaks with Mark Holden, senior vice president of Koch Industries, and board chairman of its conservative Americans for Prosperity Foundation, about how his organization sees the issue. Finally, she speaks with prison abolitionist and No New Jails NYC activist Brittany Williams about her vision for a jail-and-prison-free world — and why she believes reform is simply not enough.
This is a segment from our October 25th, 2019 program, When They Come For You.