- Mayor Bill de Blasio
Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Chief Judge of the State of New York Jonathan Lippman today announced a reboot of the city’s criminal justice system with an eye toward reducing the length of time Rikers Island jail inmates who have been charged, but not convicted of a crime, will be in in jail before their case comes up in court.
According to city data, over 400 people had been locked up for more than two years without being convicted of a crime as of late last month. Additionally, there are currently a half-dozen people at Rikers who have been waiting on pending cases for more than six years.
Among the changes de Blasio and Lippman are instituting include calendaring for trial or plea all cases within 45 days where the defendant is being held at Rikers and the case has been pending for longer than a year; resolving within six months 50 percent of all cases where the defendant is detained at Rikers and the case has been pending for longer than a year; and overhauling half of all criminal court cases by making the summons process easier to understand and navigate.
“Too many people have been detained at Rikers, sometimes for years, while they wait for trial,” said de Blasio in a statement. “For the first time, our city will work with the courts, law enforcement, district attorneys and the defense bar to immediately tackle case delays head-on and significantly reduce the average daily population on Rikers Island.”
The rebooting of the criminal justice system comes as the city has seen a tremendous drop in serious felony crime in the last 25 years, including a drop in murders from over 2,245 in 1990 to 333 last year. This has corresponded to a hight of over 20,000 Rikers two decades ago to about 10,000 currently held at the jail.
Today’s move also drew support of prison reform advocates and several Brooklyn lawmakers.
“The mass incarceration of millions of Americans, disproportionately young men who are African American or Latino, harms our civil society by depriving communities of their young men, separating husbands from their wives and fathers from their children, and stigmatizing young men as felons. Many of those individuals who are incarcerated have committed only minor infractions, such as failing to pay a small fine, but are nonetheless confined a jail for an extended period of time. I commend Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman for the efforts to reduce the rate of incarceration in New York City by expediting the processing of pending cases and providing the public with better information about appearances in court and paying fines. These initiatives have the potential to increase compliance and, therefore, reduce the number of people who are unnecessarily jailed for minor infractions,” said Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke.
“Today is a big step for our push to have more transparency and basic fairness in our criminal justice system,” said State Senator Daniel Squadron. “I have pushed for more fairness in our state’s marijuana laws, and the end of a system where people languish in Rikers without ever being convicted. Mayor de Blasio and Chief Judge Lippman are stepping in where the state legislature has failed, with these important initiatives in both areas to promote justice. ”
“Changes implemented through Justice Reboot are long overdue. Now is the time to get low level offenders processed in a timely manner, while at the same time punishing the more serious offenders by having their trials come up sooner. Some low level offenders have been lost in the system and languished in jail for over two years for minor offenses that wouldn’t normally even merit a jail sentence. This initiative will work at alleviating this problem. Summons reform is another system that has needed an overhaul for some time. Offenders who receive summons are often presented with a hard to read document filled with legalese rather than plain language. Creating a fair criminal justice system has long been my top priority as the Chair of the Assembly’s Standing Committee on Codes, and I look forward to working with Mayor de Blasio and Chief Judge Lippman on Justice Reboot,” said Assembly Member Joseph Lentol.
