Reuven Blau, Author at THE CITY - NYC News

The Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers Island.

Jails

Rikers Island Forced to Reopen Closed Jail as Understaffed State Prisons Refuse Transfers

April 3, 2025, 5:47 p.m.April 3, 2025, 5:47 p.m.

Some 500 people waiting to be sent to upstate prisons won’t be moved until at least late April, THE CITY has learned.

Alex Rotar speaks in a Rikers Island meeting room about his mental health struggles.

Courts

One Man’s Year on Rikers Exposes Limits of Mental Health Reforms

April 3, 2025, 5:00 a.m.April 6, 2025, 11:05 a.m.

Prosecutors won’t let Alex Rotar into a special court designed to help steer people with mental illness away from incarceration. A proposed law could make that path easier to access.

Rikers Island

City Jail Population Sures 7,000, Headed in Wrong Direction for Close-Rikers Plan

March 20, 2025, 5:00 a.m.April 4, 2025, 3:27 p.m.

By law, the city will be legally barred from using Rikers jails after 2027, but the move-out can happen only if there are less than 5,000 people behind bars.

Gov. Kathy Hochul walks out of Marcy Correctional Facility with barbed wire behind her. She walks with a man in a grey suit on the right and a woman in a beige suit on the left.

Criminal Justice

Prison Deaths and Strike Chaos Reveal Backsliding on Basic Reforms

March 17, 2025, 5:00 a.m.May 14, 2025, 4:54 p.m.

A promised prison overhaul is on a collision course with New York’s long history of keeping basic information about abuses and killings hidden from the public

Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley Liddie testifies at a City Council budget hearing.

Jails

Rikers Now Looks to Bring Back Nonprofits After Kicking Them Off Island

March 7, 2025, 5:22 p.m.March 7, 2025, 5:25 p.m.

Two years ago, Department of Correction officials said they could cut costs by in-sourcing social and educational programs for detainees. It did not work out.

"G.H. On Strike" read a makeshift placard beneath the Green Haven Correctional Facility sign.

Prisons

State Prison Strike Drags On as Gov. Hochul Threatens Firings and Arrests

March 3, 2025, 7:44 p.m.March 4, 2025, 6:17 a.m.

New York has used both carrots and sticks in a so-far unsuccessful effort to end the wildcat walkout, with the governor now pushing to get permission from a state judge to begin arresting striking officers.

Corrections officers hold a picket line outside Green Haven prison.

Labor

Tentative Agreement to End State Prison Strike Rolls Back Solitary Reform

Feb. 28, 2025, 1:50 p.m.Feb. 28, 2025, 2:02 p.m.

Gov. Kathy Hochul agreed to temporarily suspend a rule limiting the use of solitary confinement to 15-days and to pay officers extra money to work overtime on weekends.

People with family who died in state prison decry a corrections officers strike.

Prisons

Two Sing Sing Prisoners Die Hours Apart as Illegal Guard Strike Drags On

Feb. 27, 2025, 5:52 p.m.Feb. 28, 2025, 10:22 a.m.

Anthony Douglas, 67, and Franklyn Dominguez, 35, died on Wednesday afternoon within about four hours at a prison that has been on lockdown since correction officers launched a wildcat walkout in mid-February.

People wait in line to visit loved ones detained on Rikers Island.

Jails

At Rikers Commissary, Prices Exceed Those at Local Stores Despite Pledge to Bring Costs Down

Feb. 26, 2025, 5:00 a.m.March 13, 2025, 3:02 p.m.

A spot check by THE CITY following our investigation finds a private company charging huge markups under an agreement that was supposed to rein them in.

Governor Hochul wears a dark navy suit and holds a black folder. A man is on her right in a grey suit and her left a woman in a dark green jacket. The red brick prison entrance reads Marcy Correctional Facility behind them.

Incarceration

Upstate Prison Staffers Charged in Beating Death of Robert Brooks

Feb. 20, 2025, 2:17 p.m.Feb. 20, 2025, 6:43 p.m.

Brooks, 43, was repeatedly punched and kicked by guards who held him down on a medical bed inside an upstate prison on Dec. 9.

Reuven Blau

Rikers Island Forced to Reopen Closed Jail as Understaffed State Prisons Refuse Transfers

One Man’s Year on Rikers Exposes Limits of Mental Health Reforms

City Jail Population Sures 7,000, Headed in Wrong Direction for Close-Rikers Plan

Prison Deaths and Strike Chaos Reveal Backsliding on Basic Reforms

Rikers Now Looks to Bring Back Nonprofits After Kicking Them Off Island

State Prison Strike Drags On as Gov. Hochul Threatens Firings and Arrests

Tentative Agreement to End State Prison Strike Rolls Back Solitary Reform

Two Sing Sing Prisoners Die Hours Apart as Illegal Guard Strike Drags On

At Rikers Commissary, Prices Exceed Those at Local Stores Despite Pledge to Bring Costs Down

Upstate Prison Staffers Charged in Beating Death of Robert Brooks

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