Rikers commission aims to seize momentum with video campaign

The Independent Rikers Commission is launching a new video series aimed at informing New Yorkers about the need to close Rikers Island as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration confronts an August 2027 deadline it is all but guaranteed to miss.

Three videos in what’s expected to be a six-part series will drop Tuesday morning, setting the stage for the commission of civic leaders to kick off a larger public education campaign that they hope will galvanize New Yorkers. The looming deadline and new leadership make this an important moment for the notorious jail complex’s future, according to the commission. “The videos are really about how we reach the larger audience of New Yorkers that may know something about Rikers, but not necessarily a whole lot. (For) those wondering, ‘How we can actually close it, whether we are going to be safer and are we better off?’” Zachary Katznelson, the commission’s executive director, said, “The answer is emphatically ‘yes.’”

Young adults, many of them formerly incarcerated or with family members who have spent time behind bars, will play a big role in the campaign. They already helped craft the videos as part of the commission’s youth fellowship. In the months to come, the videos will be used across workshops in New York City schools and other community-based settings. 

The commission, a second iteration of the original group led by former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, released its own detailed blueprint last year on how the city can close Rikers Island. 

With new leadership at the helm of city jails, including Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards and remediation manager Nicholas Deml, advocates have increasingly begun to hope that the system’s long-standing cycle of violence and dysfunction might soon come to an end. The city has made progress in other areas too, like appointing a “Close Rikers Czar” and replacing an aged medical facility with a new therapeutic unit at Bellevue Hospital. Deml, who was appointed by a federal judge in January to reform Rikers Island, released his first plan to do so last month. 

But it’s no secret that the city won’t meet the August 2027 deadline to close Rikers Island and replace it with four smaller borough-based jails – a plan set by the City Council in 2019.

The incarcerated population is too high and progress on constructing the jails is too slow. While these issues began before the Mamdani administration, they are ones it must now contend with. 

Setting a new deadline would be a key step, according to Katznelson. So far, Mamdani has been careful not to give a specific timeline, though internal conversations are underway. 

“The city’s got to hit and earn the extension. It’s not going to just be granted with grace,” Katznelson said. “You have to earn the extra time that it’s going to take to close Rikers by showing you’re making progress to a safer, smarter, more effective system.”