Last week, Gregory Acevedo, a 48-year-old man held in Department of Correction (DOC) custody, leaped
to his loss of life from New York City’s floating jail, the Vernon C. Bain Center (VCBC). He plunged 50 toes into the East River and was discovered unresponsive. His lawyer mentioned he had been held on the barge since February. Fifteen different folks have died due to DOC negligence this yr.
Acevedo’s choice to leap from the jail drew renewed calls to shut VCBC, colloquially often called “The Boat.” VCBC was constructed in 1992 as a makeshift
jail floating simply off Hunts Point within the Bronx. It was meant as a stopgap answer to alleviate overcrowding on Rikers Island, as the town’s jail inhabitants had soared
to 22,000 folks on the top of the War on Drugs. By 1995, nonetheless, the jail inhabitants had decreased
to lower than 18,000, and metropolis officers determined to shut down operation of The Boat, a transfer they anticipated to save $2 million a month. Then, Rudy Giuliani reopened it as mayor within the late Nineties, and it has remained in service since.
Today, New York City’s jail inhabitants has dropped to lower than 6,000, however the metropolis continues to maintain folks on the floating jail. A person named Stephan Khadu additionally died
on The Boat final Fall, and protection attorneys say that the situations all through DOC amenities are “nightmarish.”
“We’re talking about serious cases of severe medical neglect, about fires that are allowed to burn unabated while people are locked inside of their cells. We’re talking about assaults on people by guards, or assaults by other individuals who are incarcerated that are allowed, and even encouraged, by DOC staff. We’re talking about people who are being kept there past the days that they’re supposed to be released,” mentioned M.Ok. Kaishian, a civil rights legal professional with purchasers on VCBC. “People will do a lot of things to escape what really amounts to hell for them.”
Freedom Agenda Community Organizer Edwin Santana, who was as soon as detained at VCBC, mentioned that Acevedo’s choice to leap overboard underlines how dire the situations have to be. “The Boat must be just as bad as Rikers Island for someone to do that. That person wanted off that boat,” he mentioned. He added that the poor situations are pushed by an abdication of accountability by DOC to deal with the failures which have led to dozens of jail deaths because the begin of final yr. “Nobody is being held accountable for what’s happening [on Rikers Island], so of course it’s going to spill over to The Boat.”
Over the final two years, 31 folks have died due to neglect in New York City jails—up from 11
between 2018 and 2019. Those deaths are a direct consequence of the “hellish” situations in DOC amenities, which embody folks held for days in dangerously crowded consumption amenities with no beds, folks forced
to sleep in bathe cells amongst sewage and fecal matter, the denial
of medical care, a failure to present entry to counsel and courts, and pretrial detention stretching months or even years. The lethal dysfunction is due to an overreliance
on pretrial detention and rampant workers absenteeism. A report by the federal monitor observing metropolis jails discovered that 30 percent of the DOC workforce doesn’t present up to work on any given day.
Santana, who was additionally as soon as detained on Rikers Island, mentioned that the argument that VCBC is someway safer for folks held in DOC custody is not sensible. “When I got to The Boat, I didn’t feel safer than if they would have sent me to Rikers. It’s being run by the same people,” he mentioned. “The conditions of the Boat are the same as Rikers Island. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”
New York City wants to shut The Boat. It’s a relic of the War on Drugs and doesn’t construct public security—in reality, it represents a significant legal responsibility. The metropolis has a plan to shut VCBC in 2027 however has but to take any concrete steps to cut back reliance on it, regardless of a dramatically smaller jail inhabitants. Rather than pour thousands and thousands into working a floating jail, officers can, and may, as an alternative make investments
in options, like supportive housing and therapy
for psychological sickness and substance use situations to mitigate our dependence on jail and meet the wants of individuals in disaster.
“VCBC was intended to be temporary overflow when the Rikers population topped 20,000. It was not designed to give access to recreation, programs, or services,” mentioned Alice Fontier, managing director of Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, a public defender workplace representing folks on The Boat. “It is literally a ship, with Black and brown men in chains and cages, with no known end to their torture. The Middle Passage exists in the East River.”