Jails like Rikers—and the broken systems of which they are part—perpetuate inequality and injustice. For example, the current cash-bail system disproportionately punishes poor people, who are consigned to spend weeks and sometimes years in jail when they lack the necessary $500 or less to make bail. In some cases, for-profit bail bond companies exploit the desperation of poor families; in many others, people who can’t pay go straight to jail, which in New York City costs $247,000 per person, annually.

Poverty and institutional racism make it more likely that a person will head to Rikers. Once there, the effects of incarceration are profound. As the Rikers Commission found:

Individuals who go into jail with problems—substance abuse, mental health disorders, lack of education, etc.—tend to come out with those problems exacerbated.

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