By Currents News
Advocates are pushing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to speed up the closing of Rikers Island.
The prison complex is legally mandated to close by 2027, which experts worry will be unlikely because the four borough-based jails won’t be completed until the 2030s.
Advocates are looking to use funding for Rikers for prison diversion programs, alternatives to incarceration and community reentry efforts so the population at Rikers can drop low enough to allow closure by 2027.
Former NYPD Detective Jimmy Dennedy knows a lot about recidivism, reentry, remorse and reconciliation from both sides of the badge.
His story is told in the new book “Hard Guys Cry,” written by longtime Brooklyn prosecutor Michael Vecchione
One passage from the book reads: “Jimmy’s weapons were his ears, his compassion, his humor, and his heart, as he ministered to the spiritual needs of men who were serving decades in prison, some without hope of ever returning to their families.”
Vecchione tells Currents News people need to hear the story because follow-ups are rarely given to those serving 30 years or life sentences, noting that they are human beings.
Recidivism rates in New York State stand at nearly 20 percent. When counting rearrests within two years, the rate is more than double that.
With measures such as the Second Look Act, which would allow judges to reevaluate cases where individuals have served at least 10 years or half their sentence, the push to close Rikers Island and legislation addressing disparities in healthcare for people reentering society, the message from the guests was clear.
“This is the criminal justice system at work,” one said. “Alternatives to incarceration work. I’ve seen it.”
Both Dennedy and Vecchione, lifelong Catholics educated in the Diocese of Brooklyn, said the book shows what it means to live out compassion for one’s neighbor.
A physical or digital copy of Michael Vecchione’s book, “Hard Guys Cry,” is available on Amazon.