Air attack on rikers island

THE MOVEMENT to close Rikers Island is taking its message to TV.

The ad, which will run during prime time on NY1 Monday, begins by highlighting Mayor de Blasio’s campaign commitment to end economic inequality in New York City.

“Three years later, you failed to reform a human rights atrocity right in your own backyard: New York’s biggest and most corrupt jail complex,” the narrator says as images of violence behind bars flash on the screen.

The ad is the brainchild of Glenn Martin, the president and founder of JustLeadershipUSA, a group advocating for the closure of Rikers Island.

The group, and other inmate advocates, wants the city to replace Rikers Island with modern jails closer to courts.

But the de Blasio administration has balked at the idea, arguing that Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte is enacting a series of reforms to make the jail complex safer.

That has not been enough for Martin, a former inmate himself.

“New York City’s reputation as a sanctuary city is tarnished by the ongoing criminalization of thousands of its own residents who suffer unnecessarily in disgraceful and dangerous conditions,” he said.

Closing Rikers would cost the city an estimated $10 billion and take at least 10 years. It would also entail changing state law regarding bail to halve the approximately 10,000 inmate population.