A future with no Rikers: Viv

CITY COUNCIL Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito is pushing to cut the population of Rikers Island until it’s so small that the jail complex could be shut down.

Mark-Viverito announced the proposal Thursday in her State of the City address as part of an ambitious criminal justice reform agenda that also includes wiping old arrest warrants off the books.

“Rikers Island has come to represent our worst tendencies, and our biggest failures,” she said. “For too long, Rikers has stood not for more justice, but for revenge.”

Mark-Viverito announced the formation of a new, independent commission, chaired by the state’s former chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, to do a comprehensive review of the justice system that will especially focus on cutting the size of Rikers, the violence-plagued jail complex that houses around 11,000 inmates.

It will look at options like moving adolescents and people with mental illnesses off Rikers, housing more people in jails in other boroughs, and reducing pretrial detention rates.

Mark-Viverito noted that 70,000 people are admitted to Rikers and other jails each year, but only 16% are ultimately sentenced to prison.

She cited the tragic story of Kalief Browder, who the Daily News reported exclusively in June 2015 killed himself after spending spent three years at Rikers awaiting trial for stealing a backpack.

“Kalief entered as a child, but left as a broken man,” she said.

In a speech titled “More Justice,” Mark-Viverito also pitched her proposal to clear hundreds of thousands of old warrants for minor crimes such as public urination and drinking, littering and making excessive noise.

“Spending the night in jail on a 10-year-old warrant for being in the park after dark is not just unfair, it’s senseless,” she said.

The speaker’s plan quickly drew a backlash from correction and police unions.

“That’s not a dream. That’s a fantasy,” Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Norman Seabrook said of closing Rikers.

Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said the warrant plan shows Mark-Viverito is “part of the antipolice cartel that exists in the City Council.”

Rikers Island has come to represent our worst tendencies, and our biggest failures.

MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO