Advocates rally in support of Rikers Island hunger strike
(Left) Protesters and elected officials gathered outside Rikers
Island on Jan. 13 to stand in solidarity with reported hunger
strikers on the island. (Above) Many advocates and elected
officials are calling for the facility to be decarcerated.
Photos by Dean Moses
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | JAN. 21 - JAN. 27, 2022 9
BY DEAN MOSES
Throngs of elected officials
and human rights advocates
rallied Thursday,
Jan. 13, outside Rikers Island
where hundreds of prisoners
are reportedly staging
a hunger strike.
The conditions inside the
penal island have long been
decried by advocacy groups,
formerly incarcerated individuals,
and friends and
family members of those
still on the inside.
Yet, according to Christopher
Boyle, an attorney
and director of data research
and policy for the
New York County Defenders
Service who also served as a
whistle-blower on the
hunger strike, prisoners
are attempting to protest
what are said to be appalling
conditions and treatment
through nonviolent means.
A coalition of protest
groups such as The Fortune
Society and #HALTsolitary
were joined by a host of
elected officials beneath the
Rikers Island entrance sign
on Hazen Street and 19th Avenue
in order to demand immediate
action by the mayor
and the Department of Corrections
(DOC) in what they
are calling a crisis.
Elected officials who
have visited the jail are also
calling upon the mayor’s office
to take action, going as
far as to say that the facility
should be immediately
closed.
“We must end the practice
of solitary confinement.
It is torture. It has devastated
so many, especially our
LGBT+ and trans communities
in particular. We must
shut down Rikers Island
now. Shut it down,” Council
member Shekar Krishnan
said.
Yet DOC is denying the
hunger strike outright,
claiming that reports of a
strike are exaggerated and
instead prisoners are merely
refusing to consume institutional
food and instead eating
commissary food.
When presented with this
rebuke, Boyle told Schneps
Media that DOC is dancing
around the issue.
Boyle charged that many
of those serving time do not
have the financial means to
purchase other food.
Advocates also strove to
remind attendees that many
of those inside the prison are
awaiting trial and have yet
to be convicted of a crime,
meaning that innocent
individuals could also be
facing what visitors say are
inhumane conditions.
#02_rw
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