Dear friends,
Saturday was the 235th anniversary of the US Constitution. It was also the birthday of William Carlos Williams, who wrote: It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.
I want to celebrate the poetry of the Constitution’s Preamble, which is old news that still matters for as long as we breathe life into it.
We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The framers got a lot wrong AND their vision of a living document that could bring justice, peace, security, well-being, and freedom to the people remains beautiful.
The welfare of people behind bars — especially in a nation that incarcerates so many people — is surely part of the general welfare.
Correction officers failed to make their rounds and supervise detainees, did not give emergency medical help, didn’t bring inmates to medical appointments and made false entries in logbooks, according to the report.
The investigation did not include six deaths due to medical conditions, including Covid, although certainly the failure to get people timely medical care likely factored into these fatalities.
Echoing the report of insufficient supervision in eight deaths last year, is the tragic case of Michael Nieves. Nieves was given a razor with which to shave, which he claimed to have left in the shower. Nieves had made two previous suicide attempts before he slit his own throat on August 25.
More than an hour before Nieves was discovered bleeding, a log notation indicated that he had refused to return the razor and that a supervisor was notified. There also appears to have been a 45 minute delay before EMS arrived. Nieves died five days later.
Three employees were suspended in connection with Nieves’s death.
Last spring, two former corrections commissioners recommended that Rikers be placed under federal receivership. Vincent Schiraldi, who led the agency until last December, explained the advantages of receivership over a change in leadership:
“Receivers can cut through red tape because the requirement to run a constitutional jail can trump a (union) contract or state or local law.”
While I am always nervous about processes that disregard labor agreements or legislation, it is quite evident that the new leadership at the Department of Corrections is no more able to address the violence and chaos in the city’s jails than the previous leadership.
At the beginning of this year, the Brennan Center for Justice also came out in support of federal receivership, recounting examples of successful examples of successful federal efforts to turn prisons around.
Hernandez D. Stroud, writing for the Brennan Center, described receivership as
a tourniquet for flagrant constitutional abuse when all other solutions have fallen short. And when receiverships stop institutional bleeding, it’s ultimately up to us, the people — working through our political representatives — to never again permit unabated cruelty to carry the day in our names.
Contact Jumaane Williams, our Public Advocate, to ask what steps he is taking to advocate for the people in city jails and for federal receivership.
The promises to close Rikers are unlikely to be kept. City Comptroller Brad Lander remarked publicly this month,
“We are not on the timeline to close Rikers in 2027 either in the trajectory of the number of people being held awaiting trial or in the speed with which the new facilities are being built.”
Earlier this summer, after averting a federal takeover of Rikers for a few more months, the city missed a deadline furnished by the Renewable Rikers Act of 2021 for the transfer of unused Rikers facilities to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.
Please read about the campaign to close Rikers and let me know if you think we should sign on. Here is a list of other organizational supporters.
The framers of the Constitution were under pressure to win ratification for the Constitution, and in answer to a faction that was prepared to reject it, they included the Bill of Rights.
The Ninth Amendment indicates that all the rights to which we are entitled are not necessarily spelled out in the document.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
We have, however, arrived at a moment when certain rights — voting rights and reproductive rights come immediately to mind — must be made explicit.
Americans detained before trials are allowed to vote, a status affirmed by a 1974 Supreme Court case. As a matter of law, pretrial detainees are presumed innocent and retain the voting rights they had before being charged with a crime. Yet people in jail face significant, sometimes insurmountable obstacles to registering to vote and accessing a ballot.
This isn’t too surprising, since there are obstacles to voting even for eligible voters outside of jails. This summer, the Legal Aid Society called on the NYC Board of Elections to provide an early voting site for folks at Rikers, 90 percent of whom are eligible to vote because they are being held pre-trial or on a parole violation, or sentenced to misdemeanor offenses.
Call the NYC Board of Elections to ask about progress in planning for people who are detained to vote in the upcoming election.
with love,
L