The Marshall Project:
I started as commissioner of New York City’s Department of Correction in June 2021. In that role, I was responsible for running New York City’s jails, including the legendarily brutal Rikers Island. Having spent 42 years in the criminal justice field, I thought I was professionally and emotionally prepared for what I would encounter. But even though I had headed up a probation department and a youth corrections system; served as an advocate, academic and non-profit director; and toured correctional facilities throughout the world, nothing could have been further from the truth.
During my seven months as corrections commissioner, conditions at Rikers consistently fell below my already-low expectations. Staff absenteeism soared, uses of force increased, programming and visitation declined, shank attacks skyrocketed, and deaths rose. Little has changed since I left last December. In my view, the chaos reflects our nation’s racist and destructive fixation on imprisonment. It’s Exhibit A for why we need to end mass incarceration.
The United States didn’t always imprison or otherwise detain almost 2 million people. Our unofficial march toward mass incarceration began in the 1970s with President Richard Nixon’s cynical War on Drugs. From 1972 to 2009, the nation’s incarceration rate mushroomed more than fivefold. With the 1973 passage of New York’s punitive Rockefeller Drug Laws, the state’s rate exploded alongside the nation’s. By 1996, the rate of people in its prisons and jails exceeded the nation’s by 30%. Continue reading >>>
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