what happen to trangender women when they go to jail
Amid Chaos at Rikers, Women and Transgender People to Be Transferred
The motion, meant to gratis staff to restore order at the notorious jail system, raises questions about the detainees' access to their lawyers and families.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced that women and transgender people held at the Rikers Island jail complex will be transferred to ii state prisons 40 miles north of New York City, in the latest try to stem a crisis that has engulfed the correction organisation.
The move, which begins Monday, is intended to address an ongoing staffing shortage — roughly i in three jailers are non showing for work — past allowing the city to post guards from the women's units in other, more chaotic parts of the circuitous.
It comes as pressure builds on land and federal officials to footstep in as the city struggles to restore society in Rikers, its largest jail compound, which has fallen into a state of danger and despair.
The transfers might allow women who have not received medical and mental wellness care at Rikers amidst a shutdown of such services during the pandemic to access that care in the state prisons. But it likewise could brand information technology more difficult for the detainees — a bulk of whom are awaiting trial — to attend court hearings and encounter with lawyers and family members who will now be at to the lowest degree an 60 minutes's drive away from Manhattan.
"Their day-to-twenty-four hours life at the prison will be better," said Zachary Katznelson, executive managing director of the Independent Commission on New York Urban center Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, a research and advocacy organisation. "But working out cases and having access to family and lawyers volition be harder. This has to be a short-term movement."
Tina Luongo, the attorney in charge of the Legal Aid Society'southward criminal defence force practice, called the motion "a bad thought," saying Mr. de Blasio was abdicating his responsibleness to accost issues plaguing Rikers at the expense of the detained. "This is non going to help the staffing issues," said Mx. Luongo, who added that transgender women, in particular, benefited from support at Rikers that did non exist in state prisons, including guard training related to the 50.G.B.T.Q. community and more access to gender-affirming medical care.
Despite the staffing shortage, the Department of Correction said information technology would provide daily transportation from New York City to the state prisons for detainees' family members.
In a statement on Wednesday, Ms. Hochul said the transfers, which volition happen at a rate of well-nigh twenty per week, would make the Rikers jail compound safer until the city "can place and implement a permanent solution that will bring justice to the state of affairs at Rikers."
About 230 people will be transferred from the Rose Yard. Vocalist Eye on Rikers Island — an 800-bed facility for women and transgender people — to the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and nearby Taconic Correctional Facility, freeing upwards 400 guards to work in understaffed and unmanned housing areas throughout Rikers, according to the mayor, governor and correction department.
"This decision connects our female and transgender population to the same or meliorate services and programs than they receive on Rikers Island," said the jails commissioner, Vincent Schiraldi. "Information technology allows us to significantly reduce the number of triple shifts and unstaffed posts at other Rikers facilities, and increase prophylactic and access to services."
Last month, more than than a third of all jail officers either chosen in sick or merely failed to show up for duty. The result has been an increasingly dangerous situation for guards and incarcerated people alike. In some jails, detainees have had gratis rein, controlling who enters and leaves housing areas, and some jailers have stopped confiscating weapons and failed to intervene in hangings and other emergencies.
So far this year, 12 people have died in New York City'southward jail system — the most since 2016 — including five suicides.
The transfer programme follows other efforts to reduce the population on Rikers. Last month, Ms. Hochul began releasing detainees under a new law known as the Less is More Act, which was aimed at reducing jail populations by freeing people accused of certain parole violations, like failing to report to a parole officer. Another 143 people being held on minor convictions and serving a year or less were also transferred from Rikers to state prisons last calendar month.
New York City'due south jail system holds more than 5,700 people on a given day, with a majority housed in eight jail buildings on Rikers Island. About of those at Rikers are awaiting trial.
Responding to reports of widespread staff absenteeism, Mr. de Blasio signed an emergency order last month to suspend correction officers who did not evidence up for duty. So far, more than than 100 officers have been suspended and at least five have quit, city officials said. More 1,600 even so have not shown upwardly for work.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/nyregion/rikers-women-trans-people-state-prison.html
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