You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

It May Take Years for Young Prisoners to Be Moved Out of Rikers Island

HeadlineJul 22, 2016

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced Rikers Island will move to stop housing adolescent inmates. The announcement comes three years after an investigation by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office deemed the jail unfit for adolescents due to a “systemic culture of violence.” It could be years, however, before the move takes place. The mayor’s plan calls for the refurbishment of a facility for adolescents in the Bronx, a process that is just beginning and still needs approval from the city’s Planning Commission. New York is one of two states in the U.S. that charges 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. There are currently about 200 juvenile prisoners on Rikers Island.

Topics:
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top