Giving Compass' Take:

• Maurice Chammah, writer for The Marshall Project, discusses New York City's debate over shutting down the infamous jail on Rikers Island. If done, this could be a first step in the city building its way out of mass incarceration. 

• How can philanthropists tackle mass incarceration? How can politicians come together to make prison reforms a reality? 

• Learn more about the dangers of increasing incarceration rates.

One evening last fall, Dana Kaplan, a deputy director at the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, in New York City, stood in a cavernous foyer in a Bronx courthouse to tell residents about a new jail that would be built in the borough. It was part of a 10-year plan, announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017, to close the complex of eight jails on Rikers Island and build four smaller facilities in locations around the city. There are currently about 8,000 people held in the city’s jails, down from more than 20,000 in the early 1990s, and de Blasio’s plan aims to reduce that number to 5,000.

Kaplan’s job includes shepherding the initiative at the community level—partly by highlighting that the new sites would allow the incarcerated to remain closer to both local courts and their families. Standing before images of spacious visiting rooms with high-windowed views of verdant trees, Kaplan explained to the crowd that the goal is to construct “safe and efficient facilities that complement the neighborhood.”

Read the full article about closing down Rikers Island by Maurice Chammah at The Marshall Project