In Defense of No New Jails: An Open Letter on Disability Justice to Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation
Image of six rainbow colored No New Jails screen prints. Art by Josh Josh MacPhee.
Last week, Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, released an article responding to community members who have been fighting for years to decarcerate NYC. Walkerâs article supports a plan to construct more jails in NYC while refusing to commit to closing Rikers Island. In this article, Walker characterizes community members who are in opposition to this plan as âextremistsâ and suggests that they lack nuance.
As a collective of Black Disabled people, The Harriet Tubman Collective is acutely aware of the violence that the punishment system has inflicted upon our communities, past and present. We disavow any assertions that imply that the freedom fighters calling for the closure of Rikers without building new jails are as Walker terms it, âthe enemy of progressâ. We believe that they are the heroes of our generation and of those to come.
No New Jails NYC rallying cry, If they build them, they will fill them, is as true for jails as it is for nursing facilities, âstate schoolsâ, prisons, asylums, and any and all forms of institutions. Far too often, disability is criminalized. This is just one of countless reasons why Disabled people represent the largest âminorityâ population in jails and prisons, and precisely why anyone that purports to fight for disability justice should be working towards the horizon of abolition. Anything less will further disenfranchise disabled people and others.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of our people are locked away with little to no access to health care, education, language, visual/auditory stimulation, communication, and much more. Disabled prisoners are routinely segregated and tortured through the use of solitary confinement and through various forms of deprivation, even while housed in the âgeneral populationâ. Those who survive incarceration, come home to an inaccessible social services infrastructure that provides almost no support. Many of them donât make it far.
The plan that No New Jails has put forth is clear and attainable: shut down Rikers with no new jails taking its place.
The expansion of Rikers and construction of new jails would cost over $10 billion. Instead of building new jails, the community demands that those funds be invested into the community âto create safe, strong neighborhoods by addressing community needs.â These demands are central to achieving disability justice, racial justice and economic justice.
There is no humane way to strip people of their freedom, whether itâs through the use of jails, surveillance, or otherwise. Although the rhetoric of âreformâ may seem attractive, there is no doubt that it will only result in the growth of the carceral state and loss of yet more life, liberty and humanity. Campaigns that seek to end mass incarceration by building new jails blatantly disregard the well-documented history of and research on carceral expansion.
An article published in the New York Daily News on November 26, 1972 titled: âWillowbrook: After Reform, What Then?â. 15 years prior to the closing of Willowbrook, the author argues that the proposed reforms to keep the institution open will not solve the issues longterm.
For example, not long ago, our elders fought to close Willowbrook State School. Progress was delayed by âreformâ efforts that focused on the absence of a place to hold Disabled people captive. That energy should have been directed to building structures that ensured everyone could live and thrive freely in their communities. Decades after the closure of Willowbrook and similar institutions, structures that provide safety and freedom for disabled people have yet to materialize.
Or, take for example, the fact that New York City ships its students to the notorious Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (JRC) in Canton, MA. Students are taken there because New York City is not willing to create the support systems necessary to provide public education to all students. JRC is an institution that is well known for torturing Disabled children and adults. Upwards of 80% of the students at JRC are black or brownâââwith the institution intentionally targeting negatively racialized youth in low/no income communities. JRC even takes referrals directly from Rikers.
The connections between our struggles run deep. We are routinely and intentionally deprived of resources, then blamed for our suffering. We are then divided into groups to be categorized for cages. This will not change until the cages no longer exist.
The Harriet Tubman Collective stands in solidarity with No New Jails NYC and will sign onto their campaign in struggle for what we know our people deserve.
