Conversations with Correctional Staff: COVID-19, Confinement, and Culture at Rikers Island Jail

• In Event: Correctional Staff, Culture, and Organizational Climate

Abstract

In the proposed book, the author will put Black and West Indian male and female correctional officers and captains employed at Rikers Island Jail in New York City at the forefront to demonstrate how their gender, racial-ethnic background, and unique work environment make their experiences inimitable. First, the book will explore the particular physical and mental health challenges that officers faced during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as their perceptions on the effect of COVID on detainees at its height and the current ramifications. Rikers is scheduled to close by 2027 with smaller facilities currently under construction in four of NYC’s five boroughs. Therefore, the second goal of this book is to ascertain perceptions on confinement to include the impact of early COVID-19 releases of nonviolent justice-involved individuals and the subsequent increase of offenses in NYC; the treatment of justice-involved individuals while detained at Rikers; overall thoughts on Rikers closing; and federal receivership (where New York City will lose its authority over jails to an outside authority). Lastly, the culture of corrections will be interrogated throughout this book. This line of questioning will focus on intra-racial-ethnic, interracial-ethnic, and gendered relationships between correctional staff at different stages in their careers.

Author

• Simone Martin-Howard, John Jay College of Criminal Justice