How Long People Stay is the Problem
By Michael Jacobson, Executive Director, and Victoria Lawson, Research Project Director
The following is an excerpt from an article originally posted on Vital City.
The planned closure of the Rikers Island and the extant borough jails in 2027 — and their replacement with four smaller borough-based facilities — requires a significant reduction in the incarcerated population. That means either fewer people need to enter the jails in the first place, those who enter need to cycle out more quickly, or both.
Two recent efforts from New York State address the admissions side of the equation, one focusing on bail reform and the second on technical parole violations. While both reforms have been hotly debated in the press and political campaigns, the best evidence shows that both of these efforts meaningfully advanced justice and fairness and did so in a way that did not negatively affect public safety.
There’s been far too little attention paid thus far to the second driver of population, how long people stay in jail. This is especially unfortunate because, in recent years, the amount of time people stay in jail has increased to a staggering degree, worsening the mental health, physical health and life course of tens of thousands of people each year. These unnecessarily long durations make a mockery of the constitutional promise of a speedy disposition of justice for those accused of crimes and cost New York City taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to operate a bloated and increasingly inefficient and dangerous jail system.
