Members of a commission put together to produce a report on the status of Rikers Island held a press conference attended by prison reform advocates and elected officials over the weekend. One of the 27 people who sit on the commission panel is New York Public Advocate Letitia James, who has gained a reputation as one of the more progressive figures in city government. Letitia took the podium at Sunday's [April 2] conference to share details from the report, and at one point proposed that Rikers be renamed in honor of Kalief Browder, the late teen whose case as one of its inmates has lead calls for the complex's closing over the past couple of years.
Members of Browder's family happened to be on hand, including brother Akeem Browder, 34, who responded to James' proposal by saying, "Maybe people will look at the Kalief Island, if they want to dub it that, and remember the tragedy that my brother went through." Although the elder Browder was touched by the proposal, though, he stopped short of immediately giving it his backing, adding that "It's really appreciative and thoughtful, but it's something we'd have to think over. The people should have this victory."
Critics of Rikers Island characterize it as an outdated "penal colony" built and operating in the likeness of 19th-century facilities. There is currently a plan under consideration, which would shut the 413-acre island's jail system down in favor of a small jail in each of the city's five boroughs. The plan would take at least 10 years and over $10 billion to complete. Mayor Bill de Blasio has insisted that while it may take years, it is only a matter of time before Rikers sees its last days.
While Kalief Browder's story of having been jailed for nearly three years without a trial, and succumbing to nearly two years of solitary confinement while suffering beatings at the hands of inmates and corrections officers, certainly served as a black eye for Rikers Island's reputation, the jail had already had a dark legacy. In fact the island, which was bought in 1664 by Abraham Rycken, remained in the family's control for centuries, and prior to its being converted into the modern Rikers Island jail complex we know today [1932], it passed through the hands of Rycken's most famed descendant, Richard Riker, who was an anti-abolitionist responsible for kidnapped slaves and fugitive slaves back to the South. According to records, those returned to their masters had often been detained without any kind of trial.
Source: nydailynews.com