Gothamist

“It is absolutely, positively insane. That is not something that should happen, you knew your numbers were at 28%, you said you would do better, where is the doing better part?” asked Diana Ramos, a volunteer with Safety Net Activists [of the Safety Net Project at UJC] who also received public benefits.

NY Daily News

"Solitary confinement killed my son, Brandon Rodriguez, on Aug 10,2021. It is wrong and disgusting for Mayor Adams to lie to the public and say the city jails don’t use solitary confinement and haven’t used it since 2019." - Tamara Carter, Freedom Agenda member advocate

NY1

“Personally, I have gone there and seen it myself,” said Jennifer Parish of the Urban Justice Center. “There are units in North Infirmary Command or NIC and West Facility. There are units where people are locked down 23 or 24 hours a day.”

City Limits

“It's more accessible, people don't have to leave their home,” said Charisma White of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center, a benefits recipient who helped push for 2019 legislation requiring quarterly reports on application denials. “But if you're going to use that service, you have to make sure it's working at top notch standards.”

Gothamist

"Darren Mack, an advocate for incarcerated people and their families with the organization Freedom Agenda, said many detainees were harmed in other ways despite the decline in deaths."

Amsterdam News

“[Rikers Island] continues to kill our neighbors and leave more families devastated,” said Darren Mack, co-director of Freedom Agenda.  “Instead of continuing to send people there, the Mayor needs to make the investments that will keep people safe: housing, mental health treatment, and other services to support people in our communities.”

Brooklyn Eagle

"Chaplain Dr. Victoria A. Phillips from the Jails Action Coalition [and the Urban Justice Center] and Barbara Hamilton, supervising attorney of the Incarcerated Client Services Unit with the Legal Aid Society, have also criticized the mayor’s veto. They assert that solitary confinement causes irreparable harm and that the legislation is essential for ending its use in city jails."

CBS

"Looking at the investment that's going into enforcing these small businesses, rather than investment in providing them access with business licensing. This is really a shift that needs to happen," said Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, the deputy director of Street Vendor Project.

AM NY

"Darren Mack, co-director of the Freedom Agenda, which has been lobbying for Rikers’ immediate closure — said Luna’s death was yet another sign that the facility’s days of holding incarcerated individuals must be numbered."

Middle East Eye

"Mohamed Attia, managing director of the Street Vendor Project, or SVP, says that while these incidents are alarming, vendors typically don’t report them, making them virtually impossible to track."