‘Shut Rikers’ leader quits reform group

GLENN MARTIN, the leading inmate advocate behind the charge to shut down Rikers Island, suddenly stepped down from the nonprofit organization he founded.

The board of JustLeadershipUSA “reluctantly accepted” his resignation on Wednesday, the group said in a statement issued Thursday.

Reached by phone, Martin said he was unaware the organization released a statement announcing his departure and declined to discuss the matter further.

“I’m going to let that speak for itself,” he said, “I don’t want to say more.”

In the early 1990s, Martin was incarcerated for six years in a New York State prison. He repeatedly referred to that time, and the horrors he experienced, during his calls for reform.

While on Rikers Island, he was stabbed in the torso by another inmate.

Upon his release, he joined The Fortune Society, an organization that helps former prisoners.

He later broke away and founded his own organization called JustLeadershipUSA. The group has taken off and become a national force for inmate reforms.

He has long made it a major goal to persuade Mayor de Blasio to shut down Rikers and replace it with smaller, more up-to-date jails, in all the boroughs.

The mayor finally agreed after four years of lobbying and a blue-ribbon panel headed by former New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman recommended closing the island in a report released in March.