Rajagopalan: Take a closer look at Rikers

Kavitha Rajagopalan is the author of "Muslims of Metropolis: The Stories of Three Immigrant Families in the West."

Days before Irene landed in New York, civil rights groups began whipping up a storm of their own.

After issuing a mandatory evacuation order for more than 300,000 New Yorkers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg tersely said there would be no plans to evacuate the estimated 12,000 inmates in Rikers Island's 10 jails. Critics of the decision rushed to point to post-Katrina Orleans Parish Prison, where prisoners, many of whom were children or minor offenders, were stranded in chest-high toxic water without food or electricity. When the facility was finally evacuated, they sat for days on a highway overpass before being dispersed -- and in some cases lost -- in prisons across the state.

Comparisons between Orleans Parish Prison and Rikers Island are limited, however. According to data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, Rikers Island sits at an elevation of about 26 feet above sea level, and statements by city officials suggest there are in fact contingency plans in place to relocate inmates internally.

But the decision and ensuing outcry provide a good opportunity for a discussion about how these inmates should be treated -- and not just during emergencies. Inmates fall under society's protection, whether we like who they are or what they've done. Rikers is home to some violent convicts, but the majority of its inmates are pretrial detainees who are, by definition, presumed innocent.

In recent years, Rikers guards and officials have been defendants in several suits filed in federal district court, alleging that they looked the other way or even ordered inmate beatings. None of the lawsuits have gone to trial, and in the four that have been settled, the city has admitted no liability or wrongdoing. Many of these alleged abuses took place in the island's notorious juvenile detention facilities. In 2008, two guards were indicted on a charge of running an enforcement ring that had beaten a young man to death. In 2009, The New York Times indicated that there was a clear pattern of abuse by Rikers Island guards and officials.

Rikers' policies regarding its younger residents have long been under scrutiny. In 1999, a special commissioner of investigation for the New York City school district found that Rikers officials had wildly inflated enrollment figures in island schools in their annual budget request. In fact, many of the students officially enrolled at Rikers Island schools had been released from the facility years before, and New York City taxpayers were being asked to pay for hundreds more students than were actually attending school.

In the intervening years, Rikers Island has publicized numerous programs designed "to transform the time that adolescents spend in its custody into an opportunity for growth and development," but reports of the adolescent experience there continue to paint a grim picture. According to the most recently available Department of Correction statistics, from 2009, 72 percent of Rikers' 16- to 18-year-old inmates were charged with violent felonies. These percentages don't offer good odds for rehabilitation -- or even survival -- for the remaining 28 percent. The inmate who was killed in 2008 was one of this latter 28 percent. A New York Magazine feature this January likened the dynamics in one wing of Robert N. Devoran center, a juvenile detention facility on the island, to "Lord of the Flies."

At the heart of the outcry against the city's policy not to evacuate Rikers during Irene are questions of inherent justice and social responsibility. This responsibility includes getting inmates someplace safe in emergencies (since they cannot transport themselves), but it also includes taking a closer look at who we render unfree, under what circumstances, and whether we sanction the punishments they face in detention.