Four years ago, she helped found an organization called Women’s Community Justice Association, with the aim of improving the lives of incarcerated women. Recently, she’s been focusing on getting the women’s facility at Rikers to close ahead of time.
Conditions at New York City’s largest prison are notoriously dire, but little attention is paid to the plight of female inmates, 77% of whom are victims of domestic violence. Now, the city plans to close Rikers entirely and move into a system of smaller “community” prisons in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens by 2027. But the Rose M. Singer prison — usually reserved so-called “Rosie’s” — will eventually be closed, although women are less likely to get in trouble in custody and much less likely to re-offend, according to Vincent Schiraldi, the city’s former corrections commissioner. In 2019, 49% fewer women were arrested in New York than men were arrested for violent crimes within a year.
Of the approximately 5,400 people currently being held at Rikers, only about 300 are women. What confused White-Harrigan and Schiraldi, now presidents of Columbia University’s Justice Laboratory, is that the city’s plan to move the female population to a facility in Queens would have to be built from the ground up. and will be connected. to the men’s prison. As several members of the New York State Legislature included it in a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul asking for an alternative, proximity puts women at risk of coming into contact with their abusers. .
As it happens, there is an alternative, whose implementation must be clearly visible. Advocates are proposing that the women be transferred to an vacated state prison in Harlem, which will close in 2019, and being closer to some neighborhoods where more women participate in this system, it is crucial to make it easier for their families to visit, which is seen as reducing recidivism.
The argument made in a recent paper published by the Justice Lab and the Women’s Community Justice Association is that prisons have historically been designed for men and ignored specific needs. women’s bodies – mainly that they are carers and that they are often victims of violent crime. In fact, rehabilitation, including therapy, should begin immediately, with the immigration process sped up so that women don’t have to spend days booking a room in a center without showering. And more women, the article argues, should work on-site.
