“People are isolated, sleeping in their own feces and urine, and dying,” said Melania Brown, 33 of Brooklyn. Her sister, Layleen Polanco, died in solitary confinement at Rikers in 2019. 

Ten people have died on Rikers Island in solitary confinement this year. Protesters held up a banner with the names of those who died, five were labeled as suicide. The most recent death was Esias Johnson, who died the day before his court date on September 7. His cause of death is listed as unknown. 

Melania Brown, 33 of Brooklyn, sister of the late Layleen Polanco who died in solitary confinement on Rikers Island, speaks to fellow protesters on why solitary confinement should end. September 15, 2021. Photo by Nathan Morris

When an inmate is placed in solitary confinement, they are left alone in a cell. There is only limited contact with a guard who brings them food and water. There are no phone calls, visits, or anything to read. Most of the inmates at Rikers have not been convicted of a crime and about 40 percent have been diagnosed with a mental illness. In 2020, about 13 percent of the 7,200 people held at Rikers were placed in solitary confinement and inmates are typically placed there because of disciplinary issues.

Brown has been advocating for her sister who died on Rikers Island on June 7, 2019 from an epileptic seizure while in solitary confinement. She said her sister was not consistently given medication for her seizures. Her family was awarded a $5.9 million settlement from a wrongful death lawsuit.

“In the security footage outside of her cell, they watched her die and did nothing during that time,” Brown said. “Instead of calling for help immediately, they stood at her door, watched, and one of the guard’s even laughed.”  

Seventeen officers were disciplined in her death.

After her death, de Blasio promised to end solitary confinement. The name was changed  to Risk Management Accountability System and offers a more “humane alternative” to solitary for the safety of both inmates and staff.  The change  is scheduled to begin in fall 2021. But meanwhile staff shortages has led to Rikers becoming more violent and suicides drastically increasing. Lawmakers are calling current conditions at the jail a “humanitarian crisis.”

But  as Rikers falls into further disarray, protesters want to make sure inmates are not subjected to the even more harsh conditions of solitary confinement.

“People are still dying within the walls of Rikers Island,” Brown said.

Peggy Herrera, 51 of Queens, shares her story as a mother of a son who suffers from mental health and was in solitary confinement. September 15, 2021. Photo by Nathan Morris

Peggy Herrera, 51 of Queens spoke on behalf of her 23 year old son at the rally, who spent time in solitary confinement at Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center, also known as The Boat, which took in numerous inmates from Rikers Island because of capacity issues. 

“My son was on The Boat for three nights,” she said. “Not only was he alone in a dirty cell, he was given no food or even a bed to sleep on. He was left to sleep on the floor and had roaches climbing on him.”

He also has a history of suffering from mental health.

“Jails are not mental health centers. If you want to help them, you get them treatment, jobs, and education,” Herrera said.

Jerome Wright, 61 of Buffalo, N.Y., speaks to protesters about his experience as a survivor of solitary confinement and his fight to end it. September 15, 2021. Photo by Nathan Morris

Jerome Wright, 61 of Buffalo, N.Y., spent a year and a half on Rikers Island and 29 years in upstate prison. Of that time, seven years were in solitary confinement. That’s  2,555 days of sitting in inhumane and trauma-inducing conditions.

“We are taking people and throwing them away while knowing that they have to come back to society,” Wright said. “We never blame the system that put them there. Education, therapy, or any type of real human contact do not exist for these people and they should.”

Following the rally, Brown said she was heading home to give her testimony in the virtual city council hearing on the conditions at Rikers Island.

“There is human suffering there. The people inside don’t have a voice. We need to be their voice,” Brown said.

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When Finella Jarvis’s brother was arrested, he was sent to Rikers Island for months to await his trial before being transferred upstate. She panicked and worried about her brother’s safety. Jarvis knew Rikers Island to be a legal cage for human beings that devolves them into desperate animals.

“It was heart-wrenching because that’s my twin,” Jarvis, 31, from Canarsie, Brooklyn said. “So just imagine going to court dates and going to appeals and just waiting for your brother to be exonerated and to be released. It takes a huge toll on the family and unfortunately our mom passed away when he was in there.”

Jarvis and hundreds of protestors gathered on Steinway Street and 30^th Avenue in Astoria, Queens yesterday to urge the closing of Rikers Island. The protesters marched to Hazen Street and 19^th Avenue, the edge of the bridge to Rikers Island, chanting to free their sisters, brothers and friends.

Rikers Island has been heavily criticized over claims and reports of extreme violence among inmates and correctional officers, corruption among the officers and contraband being snuck onto the island. Most recently an officer who pled guilty for covering up and helping beat an inmate to death.

Jarvis’s brother was charged with a felony weapon charge. He was released this past December on appeal.

Rikers Island has a notorious reputation. Mayor Bill de Blasio says he is trying to reform the prison. His plan includes giving some correction officers stun guns  to help decrease violence and added mental health units. Glenn Martin, the founder and president of JustLeadershipUSA, an organization dedicated to cutting prison population, said that the reforms are like “lipstick on a pig.”

Jarvis said Rikers Island is too far gone for anything to help. She said the best solution is to close it down.

“Rikers needs to be shut down because it’s just a tool that just perpetuates the demise of the black, the Latino, and every underprivileged community” Jarvis said. “No one is being rehabilitated there.”

Jarvis’s brother graduated with a degree in Africana studies from Brooklyn College and is on his way to law school. But she knows there are not the same opportunities throughout every community.

“They’re people that made mistakes,” she said. “They come from communities that are underserved, underprivileged and they don’t have some of the opportunities that our white counterparts have.”

Jarvis said there needs to be more avenues for people to rehabilitate and learn from their mistakes instead of being branded a criminal and then having less opportunities than they did before.

Walter Rodriguez, 45, from Claremont, Bronx, works in the Bronx Defenders, a public defense organization for residents in the Bronx. He said he sees clients wait years in Rikers Island for their trial in “deplorable” and “dehumanizing” conditions.

“By closing Rikers, it could help expedite justice because then we’re not warehousing people,” he said. “It’s part of a broken down criminal justice system.”

Rodriguez said that getting a court room to open in the South Bronx takes so long and therefore his clients are forced to wait in Rikers Island. He said targeting these petty crimes and having people wait so long for a trial is a “funnel for criminalizing people and then bringing them into jails.”

Stephon Rose, 27, from Canarsie, Brooklyn said that these police tactics target minorities and low-income neighborhoods and once they have a criminal record, it’s almost impossible to come out of it. She said some of the laws are so obscure that not many people know about them.

“You’re treated like a hardcore criminal,” Rose said. “Whether you’re a murderer or you jump the turnstile.”

Rose said that detainees suffered emotional, mental and physical abuse as the cost of a small crimes. She said a resolution would be to provide education on these minor laws to make sure people don’t commit crimes they don’t know are against the law.

Protestors hold handmade signs draw attention to the faulty prison system at Rikers Island.. Hundreds of people of color marched yesterday to protest the condition at the jail. Rikers Island. Photo by Sophie Herbut.

Protestors held signs with shocking statistics on the population of Rikers, as well as the amount of money, $209,000, being channeled into every inmate.

“The statistics say that 89 percent of Rikers [detainees] are Latino and black,” said Rose. “That number is disgusting.”

Ironically, Rikers Island was named after Abraham Rycken, a slave owner.

“There’s no reason why African Americans and Latinos are still minorities, but they’re the majority in our city jail,” Jarvis said. “As a whole, as a community, everyone should be out here supporting this cause.”

Pooja Kumbri, 23, from Harlem said that the best way to address people who have committed crimes is through compassion and understanding.

“So many people there for crimes of poverty,” Kumbri said. “Which is a larger issue than the individual.”

As the rally approached its destination, police officers patrolled the barricade put up to prevent the protestors from crossing that point.

“It’s ironic to see so many corrections officers protecting the island as if we want to go to Rikers Island,” City Council member Daniel Drom pointed out to the now halted crowd.

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