An Open Letter Demanding Community Services and An End to Pretrial Detention and Gender-Based Imprisonment in New York City

<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/captives-rikers-jarrod-shanahan/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Rikers</a> is, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/nyregion/judge-approves-settlement-of-suit-on-rikers-island-brutality.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">and has been</a>, a <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/boc/downloads/pdf/Reports/BOC-Reports/deaths-report-and-chs-response-202202-202203.pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">site</a> of <a href="https://gothamist.com/news/rikers-hunger-strike-enters-fifth-day" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">torture</a> for <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/boc/downloads/pdf/Reports/BOC-Reports/2020.06_Polanco/Final_Polanco_Public_Report_1.pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">all</a> who are incarcerated there. This dire situation urgently necessitates a real solution, namely, the immediate shuttering of all the jails on Rikers, the defunding of the NYC Department of Corrections, and investment in anti-carceral projects that do not create more suffering and harm. These solutions must not expand and legitimate a present and future of human caging. We urge that the people currently incarcerated on Rikers and in the Rose M. Singer Center — along with criminalized people, formerly-incarcerated people, organizers, and everyone committed to abolition — create and fight for an alternative plan that begins with universal pretrial release, investing in non-carceral, non-custodial community-based resources, and the decriminalization of survival. <a href="https://medium.com/@nonewwomensjailnyc/over-200-community-members-organizers-scholars-and-formerly-incarcerated-people-and-their-ce9218e021ba">Click Here</a>