NYC Isn’t Even Pretending to Try to Get People Off Deadly Rikers Island

Last week, in a scathing report that strongly suggested that the federal government would be a better steward of New York City's deadly and chaotic jails system than the Adams administration, the federal monitor in charge of monitoring the jails urged public officials to get people out of detention on Rikers Island.

"Reducing the jail population is necessary to support the overall reform efforts because it would reduce the number of people exposed to the dangerous conditions in the facilities," the monitor wrote.

One mechanism for doing that is via the Local Conditional Release Commission, a municipal board that has the power to grant the release of people in City jails who are currently serving out sentences for nonviolent offenses—right now, that's about 400 people, representing roughly seven percent of the current population on Rikers, according to an analysis by the Vera Institute.

More than a year and a half into his first term, Mayor Eric Adams has yet to appoint all the members of the board, and they have not met once to nominate anyone for release, the Daily News reported on Monday. "More information coming soon!" the board's website says.

Getting people off Rikers is a matter of life and death. On Saturday, 47-year-old William Johnstone became the sixth person this year to die in City custody. Johnstone was awaiting trial when he was found unresponsive in his cell on Rikers Island that afternoon.

And the number of people locked up in jails on Rikers continues to swell. The Daily News reports that there were 6,154 people held in City jails as of July 12, an eight percent increase from last year. That number is also double the capacity of the borough-based jails that are supposed to be replacing the ones on Rikers Island by 2026. The Adams administration has a transition team set up to address the closure of Rikers, but guess what? 

Here are more stories to start your Monday:

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• Drake fans are already thirsty.