The debate over the closure of Rikers and the building of new jails needs to be seen in terms of its wider political, social and historical context (Rikers 2.0: inside the battle to build four new jails in New York City, 9 December; New York’s high-rise jails: what could go wrong?, 9 December).

Rikers is often confused with a prison, when actually it largely functions as a county jail, with pre-trial detainees accounting for the vast majority of the population. They are, thus, formally innocent: there because they have been denied bail or, as is more typical, unable to afford it. The structural racism and classism of US society ensure that most are black or Latino, with over half having no high-school diploma. Indeed, throughout the history of New York City’s penal institutions, the incarcerated population has remained overwhelmingly poor – and, especially in the case of Rikers, disproportionately black.

Those in favour of new jails argue that we are moving into a “new era” of criminal justice in NYC. Yet, viewing this through the lens of history, we are faced with the depressing realisation that we have been here before. Since the late 1700s and the beginnings of the penitentiary system we have seen the failure of one institution after another. When the first city penitentiary, located in Manhattan, was condemned as an “embarrassment”, the solution proposed was to close it and rebuild on Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island) in the East River. When Blackwell’s (renamed Welfare in a rebranding attempt) went downhill with allegations of corruption, abuse by guards, sexual assaults on women, the cruel use of solitary confinement, the locking up of teenagers and so on, the solution, again, was to close it and rebuild on Rikers Island.

Opening in the 1930s, Rikers was to be a “model” penitentiary. Its architects had spent a year in the study of the best prisons in America and Europe. The “dream team” of Austin MacCormick and Richard McGee was in charge, both at the vanguard of prison reform. Rikers was to be the embodiment of the rehabilitative ideal. What could go wrong? But go wrong it did.

The solution is not to build new and better jails. The problems of jails and prisons in the US are not about “bricks and mortar” but are symbolic of much greater social dysfunction. We need to change the conversation. Our most pressing challenge, as Angela Davis argues, is the creative exploration of “new terrains of justice, where the prison no longer serves as our major anchor”.

Dr Jayne Mooney

Social Change and Transgressive Project, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

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