Closing Rikers Island: Attorneys and Social Workers Can Help

Abstract

Working together, attorneys and social workers can help to design the policies and programs that will implement borough-based jails. Such policies must also ensure the rights of all workers in correctional settings and afford them appropriate public health protections and access to mental health and psychosocial support. Transformation of Rikers must lead with a realization of the rights to health and mental health for all persons, and access to public health protections and a full range of legal and social services. Working together, attorneys and social workers offer a critical link in this unprecedented effort to close Rikers Island.