Rikers Island is a 413-acre (167.14-hectare) [1][2] prison island in the East River in the Bronx [3] that contains New York City 's largest jail. [4][5] Named after Abraham Rycken, who took possession of the island in 1664, the island was originally under 100 acres (40 ha) in size, but has since grown to more than 400 acres (160 ha).

Mar 21, 2025 · Rikers Island, island in the East River near the entrance of Bowery Bay, north of La Guardia Airport, New York, New York, U.S. Politically part of the borough of the Bronx (north), Rikers Island is joined to the borough of Queens by a bridge (inaccessible to the public).

Mar 24, 2025 · Having long fought against the appointment of an independent monitor to reform Rikers Island, the Adams administration has presented a plan for a different entity to take charge of the troubled jails system: The Adams administration. Advocates aren’t pleased. The proposal, which was submitted to Manhattan federal judge Laura Swain on Feb. 24, is part of the latest …

The history of Rikers Island is a century-long narrative of devastation, torture, and inhumanity. Its impact reaches much farther than the East River. It is, in every way, a history of New York City: its communities, its families, its government, and its history of resistance, which is as long as the history of Rikers itself.

Oct 18, 2019 · Rikers Island, a New York jail notorious for the grim stories of cruelty and abuse that emerged from behind its walls, and for its infamous inmates - among them Tupac...

Jan 10, 2025 · For nearly 100 years, New York City has been housing its detainees in jail cells on Rikers Island. And for all of that time, the jail complex has been known almost exclusively as a place of violence, chaos and death.

3 days ago · All the women on Rikers Island, now in the Rose M. Singer Center, above, will be housed at the Queens jail when the complex closes. A new report outlined steps to lower the female population from ...

Mar 19, 2025 · New York City will not meet its legally mandated goal of closing Rikers Island by 2027 and replacing it with smaller jails in four boroughs, according to the independent commission responsible for ...

Mar 19, 2025 · In a stark admission on Wednesday, the commission formed to map out the closure of Rikers Island said that the current 2027 deadline to shutter the deadly jail complex has become impossible for the city to meet.

March 19th, 2025 The Independent Rikers Commission, a collective tasked with examining the city’s plan to close Rikers Island, has unveiled a critical blueprint for reform and closure of the infamous jail complex that has long been characterized by unsafe conditions, high operational costs, violence, and systemic dysfunction.