Judge Lippman: Closing Rikers is easy — address mental illness

If Mayor Eric Adams wants a new plan to close Rikers Island, he wasn’t going to get one from former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, who was talking about the issue on Wednesday night at Fordham Law School.

Instead, though, Lippman offered a simple solution to address mental health.

“How do we close Rikers Island? What is the secret potion to make it happen? It’s not so secret and it’s not so difficult — Mental illness is the key,” former Chief Judge Lippman said. “More than half of the people at Rikers have been diagnosed with mental illness. One in five have a serious mental illness…It is clear we have to shift our approach to mental health if we are to succeed at closing Rikers Island.”

In the ever-evolving backdrop of New York City’s criminal justice landscape, a transformative commitment has been made: the definitive closure of Rikers Island by 2027. To delve deeper into the intricacies and challenges of this pledge, Fordham Law’s Access to Justice Initiative and the National Center for Access to Justice recently convened a significant symposium on Wednesday night.

The speakers included not only the former chief judge, but also Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Brooklyn’s Administrative Judge of the Supreme Court, Criminal Term, Justice Matthew D’Emic. 

Guiding the discourse was former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, who had previously chaired the Rikers Commission in 2017. Lippman’s opening remarks were nothing short of riveting. He painted a poignant and often bleak portrayal of Rikers Island, filled with harrowing narratives and uncompromising statistics — from escalating inmate deaths to the staggering cost-per-inmate.

More than just illuminating the dark corners of Rikers, Lippman pinpointed the city’s mental health crisis as central to the dialogue. With an…