Last month, the same monitor filed an emergency letter about conditions deteriorating even further. In May, a court-appointed federal monitor found a “pervasive level of disorder and chaos,” with use of force by guards up 200 percent from four years ago. Twelve people held in custody at Rikers have died in 2021 thus far. But this year, the situation deteriorated into a full-blown humanitarian crisis. Conditions there have always been terrible. New York City’s main jail complex is one of the largest correctional facilities in the United States and long among the most dangerous. If foreign delegations wish to see the degree of our civilization, they need only take the Q100 bus to Rikers Island.
Today, as the United Nations General Assembly wraps up in New York City, a humanitarian crisis worthy of international intervention is unfolding on the other side of the East River. It’s been said that the degree of civilization of any society can be judged by entering its prisons.
