Disasters: Stories We Share

A traveling exhibit

New York City

Rikers Prison Complex: Un/Natural

Aerial image of Rikers Island. Notice the island’s proximity to boroughs Queens and Bronx as well as landmarks LaGuardia Airport and Barretto Point Park.

Rikers Island is a confluence of disasters: human rights, human welfare, public health, environmental, fiscal. The jail complex is isolated on a 415-acre island—much of which was constructed artificially, including from literal garbage—nestled in the East River between the Bronx and Queens.1 Opened in the 1930s, Rikers became one of the world’s largest carceral institutions and mental institutions, an “international symbol of despair and damage.”2 The dangerous, inhumane conditions, difficult to reach location, and disproportionate incarceration of Black and Latine people have long inspired calls to close the island jail. The City Council passed legislation in 2019 to close Rikers in August 2027 in favor of smaller borough-based jails, although the island’s status remains in question today.

Incarceration is a Disaster

Operating as independent “little towns,” prisons are largely unseen by the public and isolated from essential resources. Prisons can consequently be understood as human-made disasters because they are byproducts of policy decisions that disproportionately disadvantage marginalized and oppressed people. Solely blaming “nature” for disasters runs the risk of complacency—the acceptance of unjust urban planning, increasing socioeconomic inequalities, and poorly regulated or nonexistent policies about the safety of imprisoned people.

“Inquiry into Disturbances on Rikers Island, October 1986.” A report by the New York Commission of Correction that examined a 10-day rolling riot resulting in NY State sending an investigative team to Rikers on October 17 because “the situation presents an imminent danger to the health, safety and security of the inmates or employees.” A follow-up April 1987 report blamed the insurrection on “serious overcrowding.” WorldCat Holdings.

The disasters of incarceration in the United States take many forms, all undergirded by racism. At Rikers, about 90% of the incarcerated people are Black or Latine, a disproportionate number compared to NYC’s demographics.3 Further, a vast majority of the inmates on Rikers are awaiting trial and have not been convicted of a crime.4 Prisoners are held pretrial when they cannot make bail, meaning that people are effectively held at Rikers because they are too poor to pay their way out.5 Incarceration in general, and at Rikers Island specifically, perpetuates the disaster of racialized poverty in which access to safe housing, wealth, and social capital are difficult to obtain. These are ongoing disasters, but what happens when people incarcerated on Rikers encounter hazard events like hurricanes or heat waves?

Rikers: A Human-Made Environment

Rikers experiences environmental disasters on at least two levels. First, the everyday environmental conditions on Rikers are inhospitable to human life. In 2021, New York State Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher toured Rikers, reporting what she saw on Twitter: “There’s garbage everywhere, rotting food with maggots, cockroaches, worms in the showers, human feces and piss… Most of the toilets are broken so men are given plastic bags to relieve themselves in.”6 Limited air conditioning combined with heat absorption by concrete floors, steel doors, and cinder block walls lead to unhealthy extreme heat. The island is also blanketed with a toxic stench, the result of the landfill underneath releasing methane gas while garbage decomposes.7

Second, Rikers experiences the same environmental hazards as all of New York City. As an island, Rikers is especially vulnerable to flooding. Leading up to 2011’s Hurricane Irene, the New York Times reported that “no hypothetical evacuation plan for the roughly 12,000 inmates that the facility may house on a given day” existed.8 While areas surrounding Rikers Island were subject to a mandatory evacuation order, the jail had been overlooked and not assigned a zone—a policy failure.

The threat of extreme weather in NYC is increasing as climate change escalates, but disasters and narratives of disasters on Rikers Island are nothing new.

Resources

This list of Rikers Island-related resource represents the holdings at Columbia University Libraries. For non-Columbia affiliates and affiliates alike, oral histories might only be accessible via an in-person visit to the Rare Books & Manuscripts Library (RBML). Some digitized oral histories are openly accessible to everyone but if not, you may need to create a Special Collections Research Account or contact RBML directly at rbml@library.columbia.edu. Creative and academic works mentioned below may be accessible through your public libraries’ interlibrary loan services if you are unaffiliated with Columbia.

Columbia University Libraries Oral Histories

Mass Incarceration oral history collection, 2018-2019

The Mass Incarceration oral history collection holds eight interviews by Kurt Boone. He interviews 8 members of his family who have been incarcerated, work in law enforcement or corrections, or have close family members who have been incarcerated. Narrators discuss their relationship with mass incarceration, whether that is through their own incarceration, their work as a police officer or corrections officer, or through a family member’s incarceration. Narrators who have been formerly incarcerated discuss the events that led up to their incarceration, including homelessness, domestic violence, and poverty. Narrators who are currently or have previously worked in law enforcement of corrections reflect on the impacts of crime, policing, and incarceration in Black communities.

Oral Histories that speak to the Rikers Experience

Even when an oral history project isn’t explicitly about Rikers Island, the jail complex sometimes shows up in interviews. The oral history recordings below come from a variety of collections in Columbia University’s Oral History Archives, but all of them include discussion of a relationship between the oral history narrators and Rikers.

Creative Works

Music

Videos

Memoir, Creative Nonfiction, Poems

Academic

Citations

1. Rayman, G., & Blau, R. (2023). Rikers : An oral history. Random House.
2. Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform. (2017). A more just New York City. https://www.morejustnyc.org/reports
3. Rakia, R. (2016, May 15). A sinking jail: The environmental disaster that is Rikers Island. Grist. https://grist.org/justice/a-sinking-jail-the-environmental-disaster-that-is-rikers-island/
4. The New York Times Editorial Board. (2021, September 15). The endless catastrophe of Rikers Island. The New York Times (Online). https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/opinion/rikers-island-de-blasio-close.html
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Rakia, R. (2016, May 15). A sinking jail: The environmental disaster that is Rikers Island. Grist. https://grist.org/justice/a-sinking-jail-the-environmental-disaster-that-is-rikers-island/
8. The New York Times. (2011, August 26). Hurricane Irene: Questions and answers. https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/hurricane-irene-questions-and-answers 

Columbia University

The subject of Rikers Island was chosen for Columbia University portion of the traveling exhibit and was a collaboration between Columbia University Librarians Ben Chiewphasa (Social Sciences & Policy Librarian), Kae Bara Kratcha (Social Work & Professional Studies Librarian), and Emily Schmidt (Journalism & Government Information Librarian).

In partnership with the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) to facilitate further conversation related to the exhibit, faculty and staff from NCDP facilitated a session that unpacked the question of, “Are disasters natural?” They presented an introduction to disaster studies by focusing on different narratives of disasters as well as provide background on how disaster researchers and practitioners evaluate risks, disaster impacts, and inequities throughout the disaster lifecycle. The NCDP presenters included Thomas Chandler (Deputy Director, Adjunct Associate Professor), Hannah Dancy (Project Coordinator), Joshua DeVincenzo (Assistant Director of Education and Training, Adjunct Lecturer), Sean Hansen (Staff Associate), and Luke Turenchalk (Former Columbia Pre-College Student).

Additionally, Columbia University Libraries staff were invited to take part in training led by Sydni Meyer (Teaching and Undergraduate Services Librarian, Columbia University Libraries) on how to research and respond to letters from incarcerated people around the country. Those who complete training can formally volunteer with the Prison Library Support Network (PLSN), an abolitionist information-based network that aims to share resources and information with people who are incarcerated.

Learn more about “Disasters: The Stories We Share”-related events at https://blogs.cul.columbia.edu/spotlights/2023/09/26/disasters-stories-we-share

Columbia Universities Libraries is the fifth stop for the “Disasters: The Stories We Share” exhibit and is currently displayed in the Lehman Social Sciences Library starting June 2024.