Open Criminal Courts Report Finds At Most 6% of New York Criminal Court Decisions Are Published

By |2023-12-04T13:15:31-05:00November 27th, 2023|News|

Reinvent Albany

"Darren Mack, co-Director of Freedom Agenda, a project of the Urban Justice Center: “New York’s courts, like Rikers Island, live largely out of sight and out of mind for most New Yorkers. And when the people don’t know what’s going on, there can be no accountability."
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Behind 94 Acts of Shocking Violence, Years of Glaring Mistakes

By |2023-11-27T13:38:07-05:00November 20th, 2023|News|

NY Times

"When [Freedom Agenda member] Nathaniel Evans, 51, started as a peer specialists for one of those teams, run by a nonprofit called CASES, in 2019, he shared a caseload of more than five dozen people, he said. One of his clients was a man named Elijah Muhammad."
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Rally Held to Call for Justice for Inmates Who Have Died on Rikers Island

By |2023-11-27T13:34:28-05:00November 18th, 2023|News|

CBS News

"I got the worst call September 22nd that my son was dead. I didn’t get a call from DOC. I didn’t get a call from any commissioner. I got a call from a friend in there that was frantic,” [Freedom Agenda member Lezandre Khadu] said."
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Mayor Adams Shuffles Louis Molina From DOC Commissioner To Assistant Deputy Mayor For Public Safety

By |2023-11-13T14:32:08-05:00November 9th, 2023|News|

Amsterdam News

Freedom Agenda co-founder Darren Mack, a member of the Campaign to Close Rikers, believes the jail complex cannot be reformed regardless of who takes over. “I hope that this mayor appoints a new commissioner who clearly understands that Rikers can’t be fixed,” he said.
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The End For New York’s Floating Jails

By |2023-11-13T14:34:10-05:00November 8th, 2023|News|

The Star

Darren Mack, co-director of the advocacy group Freedom Agenda, described the boat as a “modern day slave ship” used by the department to warehouse detainees, mostly Black and Latino men, with minimal oversight. While noting the closure was long overdue, he added, “shifting people to the same hellish conditions on Rikers is not the answer.”
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The Vision of a Renewable Rikers Island in NYC

By |2023-11-13T14:30:12-05:00November 7th, 2023|News|

Yes!

“It wasn’t until I actually went back to Rikers as a volunteer for a restorative justice pilot project for adolescents that, for the first time, I saw a sign that said ‘Don’t drink the water,’” says Mack, co-founder and co-director of a grassroots decarceration organization called Freedom Agenda. Though visitors were advised to avoid drinking it, “people who are detained there are forced to drink the water,” he says. “That was a red flag.” 
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Renewable Rikers Renews Calls For Green Transformation Of Jail Complex

By |2023-11-13T14:25:55-05:00November 6th, 2023|News|

Mott Haven Herald

As criminal justice advocate [and Freedom Agenda member] Marco Barrios noted, taxpayers in New York City spend more than $550,000 per year to incarcerate a single individual, while public housing and mental health services face budget cuts.
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Last Operating U.S. Prison Ship, A Grim Vestige Of Mass Incarceration, Set To Close In NYC

By |2023-11-06T13:04:42-05:00November 5th, 2023|News|

Post-Gazette

Darren Mack, co-director of the advocacy group Freedom Agenda, described the boat as a “modern day slave ship” used by the department to warehouse detainees, mostly Black and Latino men, with minimal oversight.
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