Angela Hawken Calls For Stakeholder-Led Think-Do
Tank to Improve Conditions at Rikers Island
Director of the Marron Institute and Litmus, Angela Hawken, has written, “A Culture of Learning Can Defeat a Culture of Violence” in Vital City, where she discusses how to meaningfully improve jail conditions:
But in the meantime, the refrain that Rikers is too bad to fix is cold comfort for the roughly 6,000 people incarcerated there now and the even larger number of people who work there—and for the loved ones of both. It is possible to improve conditions at Rikers for these people without impeding progress on the borough-based jails or sentencing reform, but jail administrators and advocates will need to allow these changes, and philanthropists and community members need to step up.
In our work on institutional conditions, we have found a strong willingness to engage in improvement efforts when residents, clinical and security staff, and families are invited to contribute ideas. It’s time for a Rikers in-custody think-do tank to kick-start action, like the effort in Pennsylvania. The think-do tank would focus on short-term initiatives to improve conditions until the borough jails open.