<\/p>\n
Photo Credit: Legal Aid Society, Isaabdul Karim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Isaabdul Karim was the eleventh person to die this year while incarcerated at Riker\u2019s Island, New York City\u2019s principal jail. His avoidable death drew attention to the horrific and deepening crisis at the notorious facility, which has been called a \u201cmoral stain\u201d on the Big Apple. Despite a supposed official policy of drawing down the number of people held at Riker\u2019s Island in preparation for its projected closure, it turns out that Karim was only being held for parole violations. And, despite New York state\u2019s new legalization law, one of these parole violations concerned his use of cannabis.<\/em><\/p>\nSince the cannabis legalization bill in New York passed earlier this year, there has been an unprecedented, slightly surreal, permissive atmosphere for the herb in the Empire City. Under the new law, cannabis can be smoked in public anywhere tobacco smoking is permitted. And in Washington Square and other popular youth gathering points, cottage-industry outfits have set up tables and are openly selling THC<\/span>-rich extracts, edibles, and dried flower. None of them are licensed, because no licensing structure is in place yet \u2014 but the authorities are turning a blind eye, seemingly by official policy.<\/p>\nMayor Bill de Blasio has (for two years now) ordered police not make arrests for minor cannabis offenses, and the city\u2019s district attorneys are no longer prosecuting such cases. Meanwhile, a human rights crisis is festering at the city\u2019s largest jail. Of some 6,000 people currently held at Rikers Island, the overwhelming majority have never been convicted of the crime they are accused of. They are in legal limbo awaiting trial, enmeshed in a big backlog of cases in the city\u2019s criminal justice system \u2013 a logjam partly due to the COVID<\/span>-19 pandemic.<\/p>\nAt least 100 individuals are being held at the facility on technical parole violations \u2014 that is, failure to live up to conditions of release following a previous conviction. Isaabdul Karim was one of these.<\/p>\n
When parole violations are a death sentence<\/h2>\n As the Daily News reported, Karim, 42, died at an infirmary in the island complex after complaining to staff of feeling ill on Sept. 19. The city Department of Correction (DoC) said it appears he died of natural causes, but the Medical Examiner\u2019s Office has yet to release final findings on cause of death, and is not obliged to do so publicly.<\/p>\n
In a bitter irony, Karim could have been eligible for immediate release under a law signed by New York\u2019s Gov. Kathy Hochul just two days before his death. Intended to ease the crisis at Rikers, the Less Is More Act calls for release of detainees held on \u201ctechnical parole violations.\u201d<\/p>\n\nThe Medical Examiner\u2019s Office has yet to release final findings on cause of death and is not obliged to do so publicly.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n
DoC commissioner Vincent Schiraldi, in announcing Karim\u2019s death, acknowledged the crisis at Rikers Island and many of the city\u2019s other lock-ups. \u201cThere is nothing natural about what is happening in our jail system right now,\u201d Schiraldi said. Karim was the 11th inmate to die at Rikers in 2021.<\/p>\n
Karim \u2014 who had suffered illness and attempted suicide during a previous stint at Rikers in 2016 \u2014 landed back on the island this August after being stabbed while peddling items on a Manhattan street, sources told the Daily News. At the hospital, a background check revealed an open warrant for the parole violations, resulting in his arrest.<\/p>\n
Karim had been on parole since June 2018, after serving a term of two years and six months for selling cocaine to an undercover cop. Records on his case from the New York State Department of Corrections &<\/span> Community Supervision (DOCCS<\/span>) were provided to Project CBD<\/span> by New York\u2019s Legal Aid Society, which was representing Karim. The documents indicate that DOCCS<\/span> issued a warrant for Karim in 2020 for failure to report to his parole officer. The documents also cited a previous parole violation \u2014 Karim had been arrested for public smoking and possession of cannabis on Broadway in Midtown Manhattan in October 2018.<\/p>\nA cannabis reprieve?<\/h2>\n Section 6 of the Marijuana Regulation &<\/span> Taxation Act (MRTA<\/span>), passed by New York\u2019s state Assembly and signed into law by then-governor Andrew Cuomo in March 2021, bars penalizing parolees for possession of cannabis in quantities permitted under the Act, unless special measures have been imposed that \u201cexplicitly prohibit a person\u2019s cannabis use.\u201d No such conditions had been imposed in Karim\u2019s case, and Legal Aid told Project CBD<\/span> that his parole violation charge for the 2018 arrest probably would have been dropped at his next hearing \u2014 because the Section 6 provision is generally being applied retroactively.<\/p>\nBut Karim did not live to attend his next scheduled parole hearing.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Karim\u2019s passing, Legal Aid said: \u201cTechnical violations \u2014 including marijuana use and failing to report, the non-criminal charges that led to Mr. Karim\u2019s remand \u2014 should not amount to a death sentence.\u201d The statement charged that DOCCS<\/span> commissioner Anthony Annucci \u201chas much to answer for.\u201d<\/p>\nContacted by Project CBD<\/span> for this story, DOCCS<\/span> refused to comment.<\/p>\nThe NYC<\/span> Mayor\u2019s Office of Criminal Justice, reached by Project CBD<\/span>, denied that there are any persons currently detained in city jails for either offenses or parole violations related to cannabis. But it\u2019s difficult to assess the accuracy of this assertion due to the lack of any public record providing a break-down of those held in the system, and for what violations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Deaths on Horror Island<\/h2>\n The Daily News provides harrowing details of Karim\u2019s first stay at Rikers, or \u201cHorror Island,\u201d as many New Yorkers refer to it. In 2016, awaiting trial on a nonviolent drug charge (the cocaine sale, according to Legal Aid), he was left alone in an intake cell at the facility for three days. He attempted to hang himself and swallowed a battery, causing \u201cexcruciating pain,\u201d according to medical records obtained by the News. His lawyer told the newspaper that he was also put in an isolation cell and not allowed to use the bathroom as punishment for accusing a guard of a racist insult.<\/p>\n
The New York Times reports that Karim \u2014 who used a wheelchair and had hypertension, diabetes, and a history of epilepsy and psychiatric issues \u2014 contracted the coronavirus while in Rikers this second time around. \u201cIt is unclear whether release would have kept Mr. Karim alive,\u201d the Times states.<\/p>\n\nKarim was put in an isolation cell and not allowed to use the bathroom as punishment for accusing a guard of a racist insult.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n
After Karim\u2019s death, his partner, Felicia Bullock, told CBS2<\/span> via text that he had called her expressing his fears about the conditions at Rikers. \u201cHe told me people were dying, and in a panic saying he had to get out of there,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\nKarim\u2019s death was the second at Rikers in September. Gothamist reports that earlier in the month, Esias Johnson, 24, died of an apparent drug overdose in the island jail complex. In August, Segundo Guallpa, 58, and Brandon Rodr\u00edguez, 25, were separately found dead in their cells at Rikers, apparent suicides. Rodr\u00edguez was behind bars because he could not afford the $10,000 bond set by a judge after he was arrested in a domestic violence case.<\/p>\n
And another detainee has died since the passing of Karim. On Sept. 22, Stephen Khadu, 34, was pronounced deceased after he was brought to Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx from a \u201cjail barge\u201d moored off Rikers to relieve overcrowding at the complex. Unnamed \u201cmedical distress\u201d was cited by DoC officials, reports the Bronx Times.<\/p>\n
Commenting on Khadu\u2019s death, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams stated, only somewhat metaphorically: \u201cTwelve people so far this year, three in the last month, have been sentenced to death on Rikers Island. I would be speechless in horror and grief if I were not so angry \u2026 that we have reached this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dysfunction, neglect &<\/span> violence<\/h2>\nNew York\u2019s Mayor Bill de Blasio was shamed by Karim\u2019s death into announcing some changes at Rikers. \u201cYesterday, new intake spaces were opened at Rikers, two clinics and an additional housing unit,\u201d de Blasio said on Sept. 21.<\/p>\n
The facility was also toured that day by a delegation of officials including state Attorney General Letitia James, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, Brooklyn DA<\/span> Eric Gonzalez and Queens DA<\/span> Melinda Katz. In a statement, James said she was \u201cdeeply disturbed\u201d at what she saw. \u201cFor years, Rikers has been plagued by dysfunction, neglect, and violence, and it\u2019s clear we\u2019ve reached a breaking point. These conditions have led to an unprecedented and devastating number of deaths, and action is desperately needed. I am examining all of my office\u2019s legal options to immediately address this dire situation.\u201d<\/p>\nAlso on the tour was Alice Fontier, director of the Harlem-based Neighborhood Defender Services. She gave this harrowing account to The Intercept: \u201cThere\u2019s a segregated intake unit that we walked through where they have people held in showers. It\u2019s about two feet wide by six feet. There is no toilet. They\u2019ve given them plastic bags to use for feces and urine. And they\u2019re sitting in the cells with their own bodily waste locked into these conditions. This is the most horrific thing I\u2019ve seen in my life. I\u2019ve been coming to this jail since 2008. This is unlike anything that has ever happened here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advocates say shut it down<\/h2>\n Politicians have been kicking this can down the road for a while. In response to mounting calls for its closure, in 2019 Rikers Island was set to be shut down by 2026.<\/p>\n
Pressure had been building since 2011, when Rikers inmates, represented by Legal Aid, brought a class action suit against the city in federal court. This resulted in the 2015 Nunez settlement. De Blasio\u2019s administration committed to a host of reforms in the pact, including appointment of a federal monitor for the facility.<\/p>\n\nThe US<\/span> Justice Department found \u201ca pattern and practice of conduct at Rikers that violates the constitutional rights of adolescent inmates.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/aside>\nThe US<\/span> Justice Department had already launched a civil rights investigation in response to claims of abuse, and in 2014 released a report on its investigation, finding \u201ca pattern and practice of conduct at Rikers that violates the constitutional rights of adolescent inmates.\u201d The report noted a \u201cdeep-seated culture of violence\u201d at the facility, among inmates and staff alike.<\/p>\nIn March 2015, de Blasio announced a 14-point plan to create a safe environment for inmates on Rikers Island. When public outrage was not appeased, in October 2019 de Blasio finally agreed to close the complex by 2026, and replace it with four new smaller jails at different points around the city. This deal was approved by the City Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But this has also met with public opposition, and in October 2020 the closure date was pushed back to 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Not in my backyard\u2019 versus \u2018decarceration\u2019<\/h2>\n Opposition has been particularly strong in Chinatown, where one of the new facilities is planned. Chinatown is located near the grim Manhattan Detention Complex, commonly known as \u201cThe Tombs\u201d \u2014 where arrestees wait to go before a judge, who may then order them to Rikers. (The Tombs is also ostensibly slated to be closed.)<\/p>\n
Almost exactly a year before the death of Karim, a state judge issued a ruling that the city bypassed the legally-mandated review process for the proposed Lower Manhattan jail, siding with Chinatown residents who had brought suit against the planned construction. The planned jails in Kew Gardens, Queens, and Mott Haven, in the Bronx, also face lawsuits from locals.<\/p>\n
But opposition is split between \u201cNIMBY<\/span>\u201d (Not In My Backyard) sentiment, and groups like No New Jails, which oppose replacing Rikers with new facilities altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe #CLOSE<\/span>rikers campaign, while stopping short of this forthright demand, also speaks of the need to radically shrink the city\u2019s jail population in a \u201cdecarceration\u201d policy. Activists on Sept. 15 rallied outside City Hall before testifying at City Council hearings on conditions at Rikers. Those offering testimony included relatives of inmates who died at the facility.<\/p>\nThe de Blasio administration\u2019s official Roadmap to Closing Rikers, adopting the rhetoric of \u201cdecarceration,\u201d calls for reducing the city\u2019s jail population to no more than 3,300 \u2014 the lowest figure in a century. And it emphasizes that one of the eight jail units at Rikers has already been closed.<\/p>\n
But the total in the city\u2019s jails is still nearly double that goal \u2014 although greatly reduced from the over 20,000 at the height of racist \u201cbroken windows policing\u201d and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani\u2019s crackdown on public cannabis use in the 1990s. During the pandemic paralysis in the spring of 2020, the city\u2019s jail population dropped below 4,000 for the first time since 1946. But this year, the figure started to rise again.<\/p>\n
A 2019 New York state bail reform law, which bars imposing bail for non-violent offenses and establishes criteria for judging flight risk, has been met with vociferous opposition from law enforcement groups \u2014 and what Gothamist calls a \u201cquiet rebellion from the bench,\u201d with judges skirting the criteria and continuing to impose high bails. Rising crime in the city over the past year has provided a propaganda environment conducive to subversion of the law.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
\u2018A stain on the soul of New York City\u2019<\/h2>\n Since the COVID<\/span>-19 pandemic, the crisis at Rikers Island has been compounded by a kind of undeclared walk-out by the facility\u2019s guards. In August alone, Rikers correction officers failed to show up 2,700 times, National Public Radio reports. And while the guards themselves have an unsavory reputation for brutality, their absence has led to growing control of cellblocks by gangs. This summer, units at Rikers went up to 24 hours with no guards whatsoever. Terrorized staff has meant detainees not getting timely access to food or medicine.<\/p>\nThe city has filed suit against the guards union, the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, charging it has allowed or even encouraged guards at Rikers Island and other city jails to not show up for work. The city is asking a judge to force the union to intervene and help stop guards from skipping their shifts \u2014 whether by taking sick days or simply going AWOL<\/span>.<\/p>\nCity Councilmember Robert Holden of Queens is calling on Gov. Hochul to mobilize and dispatch the National Guard to Rikers Island.<\/p>\n
After the death of Karim, the Legal Aid Society submitted a letter in federal court asking a judge to hold an emergency conference on Rikers, and to consider ordering detainees to be released. The federal monitor for Rikers, Steve Martin, also wrote the judge, warning that plans by de Blasio and his DoC to address the crisis \u201chave a significant void.\u201d<\/p>\n
As NY1<\/span> reports, Martin wrote: \u201cStated bluntly, the City\u2019s and Department\u2019s plans are not sufficient to address the imminent risk of harm to people in custody and Staff flowing from the poor operation of the jails.\u201d He urged appointment of an \u201cexternal security operations manager\u201d to oversee Rikers Island.<\/p>\nOn Sept. 27, de Blasio finally responded to public pressure by personally touring Rikers, which he had not done throughout the years of mounting crisis. But inmates charged that prison administrators had steered the mayor away from the facility\u2019s harshest areas. \u201cThis is the dark side, and they kept him off the dark side,\u201d said one detainee contacted by Gothamist news site.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Lippman, former chief judge of New York state and chair of the city\u2019s commission on closing Rikers, told Boston\u2019s WBUR<\/span> that Rikers Island is a \u201chellhole\u201d and a \u201cstain on the soul of New York City.\u201d<\/p>\nHe especially emphasized: \u201cIt is the silliest thing in the world that we\u2019re keeping people in jail on these nonviolent technical violations. Jail should be a last resort. If you\u2019re not violent, why in the world would you put somebody into one of these places where you come out much more likely to commit a crime than when you went in?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lippman called on New York City to \u201cclose Rikers once and for all. It\u2019s an abomination. Close down this symbol of mass incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bill Weinberg, a Project CBD<\/span> contributing writer, is a 30-year veteran journalist in the fields of drug policy, ecology and indigenous peoples. He is a former news editor at High Times magazine, and he produces the websites CounterVortex.org and Global Ganja Report.<\/em><\/p>\nCopyright, Project CBD<\/span>. May not be reprinted without permission.<\/em><\/p>\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo Credit: Legal Aid Society, Isaabdul Karim Isaabdul Karim was the eleventh person to die this year while incarcerated at Riker\u2019s Island, New York City\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultimatehealthreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultimatehealthreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultimatehealthreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultimatehealthreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultimatehealthreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ultimatehealthreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultimatehealthreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultimatehealthreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultimatehealthreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultimatehealthreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}