8 MARCH 15, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Local students participate in citywide walkout against gun violence
Queens offi cials say ‘there are no advantages’ to closing Rikers
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
At a panel discussion titled “Is
Closing Rikers a Dream or
a Reality?” on March 8, two
prominent Queens representatives
agreed that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
plan to close Rikers Island by 2027
and open smaller, borough-based
jail facilities is nothing but a dream.
Councilman Robert Holden and
Queens Assistant District Attorney
James Quinn were the only voices
from Queens who sat on the panel hosted
by City & State New York. Although
de Blasio reached an agreement with
the City Council in February to house
the inmates from Rikers in existing jail
facilities in four boroughs — including
the Queens Detention Complex in Kew
Gardens — Holden said he can’t see any
benefi ts to the proposed plan.
“There are no advantages to closing
Rikers and putting jails in our
neighborhoods,” said Holden, who is
a member of the Council Committee
on Criminal Justice. “I would like to
call on the Council to commission a
study to determine the cost of a Rikers
Island renewal project before we
decide instead to shut it down.”
The current inmate population
of Rikers Island is nearly 9,000, and
part of the mayor’s plan also includes
cutting that number down to 5,000
before closing the prison and dispersing
those inmates into the borough
jails. But the combined capacity of
the borough jails is estimated to be
2,300, so Holden believes the nearly
$11 billion cost of renovating and
expanding them would be too high.
Former New York State Chief
Justice Jonathan Lippman led a study
performed by the Independent Commission
on New York City Criminal
Justice and Incarceration Reform
Commissioners that determined the
reasons for closing Rikers Island are as
follows: dilapidated buildings; lack of
visitor access to the facility for inmates’
family members; signifi cant time and
resources needed to ferry individuals
to and from the courts; and the lack of
private, safe spaces to provide detainees
with eff ective on-site programming.
“I fi nd it absurd to suggest that borough
jails will address these concerns,”
Holden said. “While I think that some
facilities on Rikers Island should be
updated, renovated or redesigned,
the security and infrastructure
cannot be replicated in borough jails.
It’s a self-sustaining operation, and it
functions like a well-oiled machine.”
Holden’s stance is signifi cant for
its about-face turn from his predecessor’s
viewpoint on the subject.
Former District 30 Councilwoman
Elizabeth Crowley once led the
charge locally in support of closing
Rikers and reopening the Queens Detention
Complex, and 10 other Queens
lawmakers signed a letter to de Blasio
to urge him to make the move.
Quinn’s position on the matter
largely echoed Holden’s, and his
main point was that reducing the
number of inmates to 5,000 is not realistic.
The charts he presented at the
discussion explained the math and
showed that of the 9,010 total inmates
housed at Rikers, only 3,330 can be
considered “bailable” off enders. Of
those 3,330, 93 percent are accused of
committing felonies, and 45 percent
of those are class A and B felonies.
In other words, all of those 3,330 inmates
would have to be released to cut
the inmate population down to 5,000,
putting thousands of alleged felons
back on the streets. Quinn’s charts
also showed that New York City has a
lower number of inmates per 100,000
residents than San Diego, Los Angeles,
Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, San Jose,
San Antonio, Dallas and Philadelphia.
Quinn added that the arguments
for closing Rikers Island have become
more irrational over time.
“Do you think the violent culture is
going to change in a smaller jail with
all violent off enders?” Quinn said in
a call with QNS. “Closing Rikers has
become more of a slogan for prison reform
than a sound correctional policy.”
Queens District Attorney Richard
A. Brown also voiced his opposition
to the closure of Rikers in a testimony
delivered to Lippman’s commission
in 2016, in which he backed the point
Quinn made at the panel.
According to Brown, in October of
2016 there were just 47 Queens misdemeanor
defendants detained on
Rikers Island. Of those 47, all but one
had at least one additional open case,
all but eight had prior convictions
and all but 16 had a history of failing
to appear in court.
The District Attorney added that
putting jails in residential areas is
not going to go over well with the
members of those communities,
referencing the protests that broke
out in Maspeth when a Holiday Inn
Express was planned to become a
homeless shelter.
“That scene would be played out all
over the city if jails are proposed for
residential neighborhoods,” Brown
said in his testimony.
Brown concluded that improving
existing facilities at Rikers Island,
continuing to reform correctional
practices and supporting alternative
sentencing programs is the best way
to move forward.
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@R_KELLEY6
Thousands of students at high
schools throughout Queens
marched out of their classrooms
on the morning of March 14 in an act of
solidarity against gun violence.
The #Enough! National School
Walkout took place on March 14,
exactly one month aft er the deadly
shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School in Parkland, Florida,
on Feb. 14. The event was scheduled
to last 17 minutes, in remembrance
of the number of victims killed in
the massacre. Students participated
across the country to demand Congress
enact gun reform.
In Ridgewood, more than 1,000 students
joined the movement at Grover
Cleveland High School when they
walked out onto the tennis courts
next to the school on Grandview
Avenue. Seventeen members of the
student council carried 17 red and
gray balloons — the school colors of
Marjory Stoneman Douglas — and
each had a victim’s name written on it.
Aldijana Hot, the sophomore vice
president of the student council,
announced the name of each victim
as the balloons were released one by
one. According to student activities
adviser John Parkinson, “Several
students and staff members were
crying as the balloons were released.”
At Maspeth High School, dozens of
students left the school and marched
along Grand Avenue holding signs
with the victims’ names and chanting
“Books not bullets,” “Enough is
enough” and “This is what democracy
looks like.”
Students from Benjamin N. Cardozo
High School and Bayside High
School in Bayside, Newcomers
High School in Long Island City and
Archbishop Molloy High School in
Briarwood also participated in large
numbers.
Mackenzie Mattone, an 11th-grade
student who organized the walkout at
Cardozo, yelled into a megaphone to rally
her classmates from the steps in front
of the school. The majority of the 4,000
students who attend the school participated
in the protest, Mattone said.
“I cannot imagine the moment
where I witness my own best friends
being killed before me, knowing
there is nothing I can do,” Mattone
said. “But what if there is something
we can all do? We can make our voices
heard. We can make a diff erence.
We can force legislators to listen to
the demands of students who want to
live another day. We can register to
vote. We may just be teenagers now,
but we are the future, and with unity
and determination, change will come.”
Joli Amour, and 11th-grade student,
said that she was thankful that Mattone
organized the protest because
it shows how much the culture surrounding
these issues has changed.
“None of us want to be next, especially
if they don’t do anything
to regulate gun control, and it’s an
inevitability that there’s going to be
a next school,” Amour said. “It defi -
nitely feels great that someone was
able to put this into eff ect because it
doesn’t feel like years ago that this
would have even happened.”
Photo from Maspeth High School, courtesy of Roseann Paneduro on Twitter.
link
link
