Boom BoomOcasio-Cortez
Dem Congressgirl from da Bronx in Noo Yawk and leader of the Mean Girl Caucus in Congress. One of the Great Minds of the 21st Century, she is known as much for her innaleck as for her dance moves. She is all in favor of socialism, even though she's fuzzy on the details. She was the inventor of the Green New Deal, though she doesn't talk about it much anymore...
and three other House Democrats from New York called on Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Hochul Tuesday to release all inmates held on Rikers Island, citing a long-running pattern of "human right violations" at the jail.
Ocasio-Cortez made the extraordinary demand in a letter to de Blasio and Hochul issued jointly with Reps. Jamaal Bowman, Nydia Velazquez and Jerrold Nadler, who chairs the powerful House Judiciary Committee.
In addition to freeing the roughly 6,000 inmates on the island, the four politicians wrote that the jail itself should be "immediately" shuttered and federal funding for its operations seized.
"The current conditions experienced at Rikers are inhumane, unconstitutional and a public health crisis," they wrote. "We believe federal funds should be used to decarcerate and shut down the facility immediately, as well as provide social, economic, psychological and physical health support to all those that are released to ensure their safe reentry into our community."
Neither the mayor nor the governor have entertained the idea of freeing all Rikers inmates as they scramble to address the spiraling crisis at the overcrowded jail.
Rather, de Blasio and Hochul have pushed for releasing a subset of inmates locked up for technical parole violations. Hochul signed a bill into law last week that would make it so minor parole violations are no longer punishable by jail, but most components of that measure won’t take effect until 2022.