To close Rikers, unstick the justice system
The future of Rikers Island, New York City’s notorious jail complex, hangs in the balance. A federal judge is considering whether to appoint a receiver to assume control of the city’s jails. The court has directed the Adams administration to submit a credible plan to restore order and safety. In the meantime, violence there has reached an all-time high, people are routinely deprived of medical care, and 16 incarcerated people died in 2021.
As this battle for control plays out, another stark policy challenge looms large: The city is legally obligated to end incarceration at Rikers by August 31, 2027. Thankfully, Mayor Adams has expressed support for closing Rikers. To fulfill this pledge, the city’s plan calls for constructing new jails capable of housing no more than 3,300 people. Yet today’s jail population is about 5,450, including 4,500 people awaiting trial. Recent efforts to roll back bail reform amidst a serious, though empirically unrelated, spike in violence make achieving this goal more difficult.
Hiding in plain sight is one partial solution with no conceivable impact on public safety: speeding up the time that cases languish in the courts.
In 2019, the city’s courts could only resolve 35% of indicted felonies within the national and state standard of 180 days. During the pandemic, backlogs have grown worse. COVID-related restrictions ground trials to a virtual halt. From mid-March 2020 to December 2020, our analysis of court data found that the city’s criminal courts held only six jury trials, compared to about 740 over an equal span in 2019.
Even with courts returning to normal operations, we found based on Department of Correction data that people in pretrial detention on May 5, 2022 had spent an average of 325 days in jail, an increase of 64 days from when the pandemic began.
Today, almost 600 New Yorkers have spent more than two years behind bars awaiting trial, at an annual cost of $550,000 per person. Of those, 90% are Black or Brown and 70% need mental health treatment.
Experts have already laid out a path for reducing case delays. The National Center for State Courts has documented evidence-based practices that rely on judges setting clear timelines for both sides to share evidence, file motions and other pretrial tasks, and holding attorneys accountable for coming to every court date prepared to make it a “meaningful event.”
These practices have been tested in Brooklyn, with impressive results. In a pilot project led by Supreme Court Administrative Judge Matthew D’Emic, 80% of cases reached a disposition within 10 months, compared to 60% under conventional systems. For people held in pretrial detention, the results were even better. The key to success? At each court date, the judge applied guidelines stating exactly what should happen (but often doesn’t) at and by each subsequent date. The judge also limited lengthy intervals between court dates.
Projections made with the Lippman Commission found that duplicating this project citywide would reduce the city’s daily jail population by about 1,000 people. Addressing today’s added pandemic-related backlog would reduce the population by another 670 people.
Still, these hopeful prospects hide inexorable realities: Implementing a successful pilot is easier than institutionalizing new practices. Human beings require real deadlines, though few exist in the courts.
Besides expanding the Brooklyn pilot citywide, what else can be done to achieve meaningful progress?
First, court stakeholders and city officials should immediately review the cases of the nearly 1,400 people now in pretrial detention for at least a year and either resolve the cases or set a firm timeline for trial.
Second, administrative judges could hold special hearings whenever someone has been detained for 180 days, the official standard. If an immediate trial date cannot be scheduled, the judge could reassess whether bail is affordable and consider supervised release or other conditions that might suffice to assure court attendance. Every effort should be made to safely release vulnerable populations, such as those with chronic medical conditions, ages 55 and up, women, transgender and gender non-conforming people.
Third, to incentivize lasting changes, the state could draw on legislation like that sponsored by state Sen. Mike Gianaris and set strict detention time limits of 180 days with limited exceptions.
Fourth, the city could establish proven Population Review Teams in each borough, where stakeholders jointly try to resolve individual cases or safely release people with community services well prior to the 180-day mark.
Trial delays have long been tolerated, though they serve no constructive purpose. They expose people to prolonged suffering, deny crime victims justice, and can preclude swift consequences for people later convicted of heinous crimes. With the city’s plan to shutter the atrocious jails on Rikers at stake, reducing court delays could both ensure the closure of Rikers and advance these compelling aspirations for justice.