Punitive Time at Rikers: The Role of Media & Mayors from Bloomberg to Adams

• In Event: The Penal Colony: Rikers, Time, and Social Justice Alternatives

Abstract

This paper interrogates the role of local New York media coverage of Rikers and nayoral responses to this jail through the lens of "punitive time" -- from the Bloomberg era to Adams. The paper centers how the mayoral administrations of Bloomberg, de Blasio, and Adams each individually responded to Rikers as a "crisis" and their attempts to rein in criminal disorder reported in the media. The paper provides a critical criminological analysis to argue that Rikers is emblematic of our collective punitive time in which the marketing of crisis and disorder is necessary for law and order.

Author

• Omar Montana, St. John's University