NOT BAILING YET
Kin of Rikers tragic inmate fights for reform
The suicide of Kalief Browder, who sat in a Rikers Island cell for three years after being accused of stealing a backpack when he was 16, sparked a serious debate about criminal justice reform in New York.
Last week, nine years after his arrest and four years since his death, lawmakers in Albany made good on promises to revamp the state’s archaic criminal justice system and passed bills that will bring sweeping changes to bail and evidence-sharing laws.
Kalief’s brother, Akeem Browder, called the overhaul a “real victory,” but cautioned that there is still work to be done to prevent another tragedy like the one that befell his youngest sibling.
“This will significantly reduce the number of people held in jail pre-trial,” he told the Daily News.
Changes passed as part of the state budget include the elimination of cash bail for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies, the expansion of open discovery, requiring prosecutors and defense lawyers to share all case information well in advance of trials, and measures speeding up the time it takes cases to go to trial.
“This isn’t over, we’re nowhere near done pushing the Legislature and other lawmakers,” Browder said. “We’re still suffering in the Bronx and other poor communities from these laws. I have an agenda, which is to make sure that Kalief’s legacy lives on.”
Browder said his brother was eligible for bail after being accused of stealing a backpack, but could not afford to pay it. Kalief maintained his innocence as his case languished in the eternally backlogged Bronx court.
Over the course of three years, he endured beatings, attempted suicide and spent time in solitary as he refused to make a deal with prosecutors. He was finally freed in 2013, after the charges against him were dropped. Two years later, the hell he endured caught up to him and he hanged himself in his Bronx home.
His older brother turned anguish into action and founded the Kalief Browder Foundation, a nonprofit focused on closing Rikers, criminal justice reform and working with teens in the five boroughs.
“Changing the laws is just one aspect of this,” Browder said. “Locally, we are in the schools, teaching civic engagement. We’ve got to really raise the awareness in the communities when it comes to their perspectives on issues from mental health to voting.”
The 36-year-old is transparent about his past struggles and interactions with the criminal justice system, saying they have shaped the advocate he has become.
In 1998, when he was 15, Akeem Browder was arrested for a string of assaults and attempted abductions of schoolaged girls. He says he and his then-12-year-old girlfriend got caught cutting school and having in oral sex. He claims police unsuccessfully tried to stick him with the other charges.
He eventually pleaded guilty to one charge of sodomy, spent three months on Rikers, five months in an upstate prison, and had to register as a Level Three sex offender.
He later spent a year-and-ahalf in prison after pleading guilty to burglary and identity theft charges in 2006. He was open about his criminal history during a failed 2017 mayoral bid on the Green Party ticket.
Browder plans to run for mayor again in 2121, as a Democrat.
“I personally don’t like the political game,” he said. “But I have to stick to it and will stick to it because this is the calling that fell onto me.”