EThere are photos that document the conditions. They show how several men lie and sit close together in a small cell. Some sleep on the floor, plastic sheets serve as mattresses. The pictures are from Rikers Island, a detention center in New York. They were taken between June and September of this year and show 26 men crowding into a cell designed for one person. The footage from a surveillance camera was leaked to the New York Post newspaper. Since then, the institution has received a lot of attention again – it has been criticized for decades and should actually have been closed long ago.
Rikers is mostly a remand prison. Suspects are sitting here in “pre-trial detention”, a form of pre-trial detention that can be ended by paying cash deposits. Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city council had promised to close the prison in 2017, but nothing happened. Human rights organizations reported that the inmates in the photos that have now emerged should have taken turns sleeping on the floor. They also used plastic bags for their excrement. The newspaper quoted an informant from the detention center. The conditions there are inhuman, said the latter, and the cells are only intended for short stays. The men in these rooms often had nothing to eat, nor would they have access to toilet paper, showers or medical care.
Up to 4800 prisoners
After 24 hours in the reception cells, according to the regulations, inmates actually have to be moved to a different wing. The prison authorities said the conditions shown in the photos have now been removed. Thanks to an expansion of the premises, the 24-hour rule can now be complied with again, according to a spokesman. Mayor de Blasio had previously announced that he would remedy the grievances. Prison officials who called in sick without an explanation should also be suspended for thirty days, the outgoing mayor said in mid-September.
In Rikers Island, up to 4800 prisoners live on an island in the East River between the Bronx and Queens. The institution has been criticized for years because inmates repeatedly report of inhumane conditions. In June 2015, 22-year-old African American Kalief Browder committed suicide after being detained here without a judgment. Browder had been to Rikers between 2010 and 2013 without ever going to trial. The youth, who was accused of stealing a backpack, had spent a total of two years in solitary confinement. The authorities had justified this by saying that Browder got into arguments with fellow prisoners. He himself accused the guards of having beaten him often.
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