Hello, I'm City Journal editor Brian Anderson.

Thanks for joining us for the Ten Blocks podcast featuring urban policy

and cultural commentary with City Journal editors, contributors, and special guests.

Welcome back to Ten Blocks. This is Seth Barron, Associate Editor of City Journal and your host today.

For decades, New York City has located most

of its jails on Rikers Island. Approximately 9,000 people are incarcerated on Rikers on an average day.

The city is now committed to closing Rikers and moving all the inmates to county-based jails,

close to borough courthouses.

This move will be more humane advocates say because Rikers is a hellish dungeon,

outdated and festering with brutality, a gladiator school where the batter made worse.

I'm joined by Rafael Mangual, a deputy director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute.

He writes frequently about criminal justice policy for city journal and other venues such as

The Post and the Daily News. Ralph, welcome to 10 blocks. Thanks so much for having me, Seth. It's a pleasure.

So tell us about Rikers Island. What's the situation there and who's there?

Well, this is one of the most important things that I try to focus some of my analysis on is the who's there at Rikers.

You know, ending up in jail is kind of as the Manhattan Institute's Heather McDonald puts it,

a lifetime achievement award

in persistence in criminal offending.

There are most of the people in there are felons.

91% of people in Rikers Island are being held for felonies.

49% are being held for violent felonies.

And if you look at some of the data as to the violence behind bars, I mean, it's pretty clear that the people behind bars in Rikers are the worst of New York City's worst.

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