Women make up only 4 percent of those behind bars on Rikers Island, the city’s main jail complex. But they often spend a year or more on the island before being tried in court. Complaints of sexual violence perpetrated by staff on Rikers are more than double the national average for correctional facilities. Despite the fact that 85 percent of the women have young children, the facility is difficult for families to visit and its nursery has been closed for more than two years. Health and mental health care are inadequate, yet two-thirds of women on Rikers have been diagnosed with a mental illness, and most have suffered sexual or other physical violence.
Our recent grant to the Women’s Community Justice Association is pushing to permanently close the women’s jail on Rikers and open a stand-alone women’s facility that makes a genuine attempt at rehabilitation and is centrally located, making it easier for families to visit.
This work is made possible by a legacy gift from Nina Untermyer; the eponymous fund she created supports programs to make life better for women and girls.
Ms. Untermyer had a hunger for justice. She worked to promote gender equity in the public-school system and was an active member of the Women’s City Club of New York (now called Women Creating Change). In addition to the grant above, we have used her generosity to provide mental health counseling to women in domestic violence shelters run by Safe Horizon. Her fund allowed us to help Her Justice advocate for a better system for applying for and receiving child support, and to fund efforts to reduce maternal morbidity among Black women through the Fund for Public Health in New York.