#closerikers

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Bail is ransom for the poor

An average of 462,000 people were kept in U.S. jails every night last year because they couldn’t afford bail. Their crime was being poor.

By Stephen Millies

Rain didn’t stop hundreds of people from demonstrating at the Brooklyn Criminal Courts building on Feb. 25 to defend bail reform. Among the signs they carried were “Bail hurts the poor” and “Remember Kalief Browder.” Many of the people who marched were legal aid attorneys, members of UAW Local 2325.

Herbert Murray spoke of how he spent 29 years in jail because he couldn’t afford bail. Murray didn’t have adequate legal representation because his attorney didn’t visit him at Rikers Island.

Nefertiti Ankra, a senior community justice attorney at the Legal Aid Society, quoted the words of A. Philip Randolph: “Freedom is never given; it is won” and “Justice is never given; it is exacted.”

[thecutestantifa]

Close Rikers Now, No New Jails

[thenib]

Read Kazimir Lee on closing Rikers Island, where for decades, people too poor to afford bail have been imprisoned. Often for years.

[dbsoriano]

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80% of persons in Rikers prison have not been charged but cannot afford bail. 70% of persons in Rikers come from the poorest neighborhoods in NYC. #closerikers @darrenmack718 (at The New School for Social Research)

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

New York: "No new jails -- close Rikers Island now!" Rally and march at City Hall to tell City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio #NoNewJails, October 17, 2019.

Photos by redguard   

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

New York: Prisoners’ families, activists denounce plan to build new jails

By Greg Butterfield

“Close Rikers now! No new jails!” The chant was loud, the demand was clear, as hundreds of prisoners’ family members, former prisoners and prison abolition activists rallied and marched at New York’s City Hall on Oct. 17. That day, the City Council was set to vote on a proposal backed by Mayor Bill de Blasio to close the city’s notorious Rikers Island prison complex by 2026  — but only to replace it with four new high-rise jails at a cost of at least $8 billion.

Another popular chant was, “If they build it, they will fill it!” — recognizing that building new jails would in no way lead to less racist policing and mass incarceration. Protesters also called out de Blasio, who styles himself a progressive, as “Trump’s mayor,” to point out that with his moves to build new jails and privatize public housing, he serves the very same big capitalist interests as Trump.

[227200]

Close Rikers Presentation. #closerikers #presentation #workshop #leadership #educate #community @thepoetrican @freedomagendany (at New York, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqSkMCSu7hH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[pastorayu]

Pop out with the squad you know the vibes #freetheguys #freethegirls #freetheghetto #closerikers #closerikersnow #closerikersisland #closerikersislandnow #rikersisland #nypd #nycdoc #newyork #newyorkcity #newyear #endmassincarceration #endsolitaryconfinement #abolitionist (at Brooklyn, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnnSodUOrrU/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=