NEW YORK — From JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA) President and CEO DeAnna Hoskins: “Scant details are available, but we do know that, over the weekend, Rikers Island claimed its tenth life so far this year. Elijah Muhammad, 31, was reportedly found ‘unresponsive’ inside a prison cell at the George R. Vierno Center on Rikers Island at 9:46pm ET on Sunday, July 10—in the midst of the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha—and he was declared dead an hour later. How many more people will have to die unnecessarily before this death trap is finally shut down for good? No more deaths! Close Rikers now!”
Contact: Stephen Roach Knight, stephen@jlusa.org / jlusa@ellecomm.com
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The nation’s prisons and jails have been in crisis long before COVID-19. This is because most correctional facilities do not have plans in place to deal with any kind of emergency, be it a pandemic, a flood or a cyber attack.
This must change.
Directly impacted people are the best voices to help change our country’s discriminatory policies. We have policy solutions to appropriately manage the range of disasters that impact correctional facilities nationwide, uplift the dignity and humanity of incarcerated people, and decarcerate the United States.
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