Rikers Island

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Rikers Iceland is an island prison in the East River of New York. The island covers 1,672 square kilometers and lies between the neighborhoods of Queens and the Bronx in the port area near the La Guardia Airport. The island is part of the Bronx, but is administered by Queens Community Board 1 and Queens is just over the Francis Buono Bridge ( length 1.2 km ) to reach. At the 2000 census recorded a population of 12,780 counted.

On the island there are ten different prisons under the supervision of the New York City Department of Correction, including the North Infirmary as a prison hospital and the West facility for prisoners with contagious diseases. The island is the largest prison complex in the world.

Rikers Iceland was also referred to as the "New Alcatraz ". The total area covers an area that is more than five times as large as Alcatraz in the bay of San Francisco. In the cells up to 17,000 men and women will be punished by deprivation of liberty, their maintenance 860 million U.S. dollars will cost the United States annually. Up to 130,000 prisoners are registered on Rikers Iceland each year.

On the site, which houses among other churches of different denominations, hospitals and a large pharmacy, work more than 7,000 law enforcement officials and 1,500 civilian employees.

Slightly less than 25 percent of the prisoners sit a for violent crimes on the island, about 80 percent of prisoners are drug addicts. About 90 percent of the prisoners are African Americans or Hispanics, although these ethnic groups make up less than half the population of New York. Be treated psychiatrically a quarter of the prisoners, about one-third of the prisoners are not resident.

History

The name comes from the Dutch settlers Abraham Rycken back to the 17th century. The island was sold in 1885 by his descendants to the City of New York. It was extended 0.36 km ² to over 1.6 square kilometers by land reclamation. The only access, the 1.2-kilometer Francis Buono Bridge, was opened in 1966; previously it was only possible to get a ferry to the island.

2011 moved the island in the European consciousness, as Dominique Strauss- Kahn, president of the International Monetary Fund, was transferred here as remand prisoners.