The Vernon C. Bain Center, also known as “The Boat,” is perhaps the only floating jail in the country. Advocates have equated it to a slave ship. It’s an extension of Rikers Island. I know both The Boat and Rikers Island well, since I’ve been detained at both places, and I know they both deserve to be a chapter in the history books and not part of anyone’s present.

 

The Boat opened in 1992 to make room for the ballooning population held pre-trial at the height of mass incarceration. Thirty years later, it’s still in use, even with the jail population at a fraction of what it was back then. With a plan in place to reduce NYC’s jail population to 3,300 people by 2027, and to establish four, borough-based facilities, while closing all other NYC jails, The Boat is set to see its last days, along with the Rikers Island jails.

 

A broad coalition of advocates, faith leaders, service providers, and grassroots organizations, along with the people most directly impacted by incarceration, have spoken clearly that the time is now to advance this plan. Our primary goals are to reduce incarceration, improve conditions of confinement, and redistribute the funds that have so long been used to operate a brutal jail system. We need a new way of thinking about people’s rights when they enter our courts.

 

Maybe the most important reason to close The Boat, along with the ten jails on Rikers, is that they are built to separate people from justice. In a very real sense, a boat is like an island. You have to leave solid ground to get to it, and when you’re there, you’re not part of the mainland. I got the feeling it was just a holding facility, only they wouldn’t tell me where I was going next. I was kept in a cell by myself for two days. I was so alone, with no human interaction, that I could feel the boat rocking. I eventually ended up at Rikers while waiting for my case to be adjudicated.

 

Because they’re so isolated, both The Boat and Rikers, effectively separate people from the courts, and any chance of a just handling of their cases. Almost every jail in the country is close to the court associated with it, for good reason. When I was arrested in June 2009 in Bushwick, I was taken to The Boat from Precinct 104, and I wasn’t the only one going from this boat in The Bronx to Brooklyn, Queens, or Manhattan.

 

Like thousands of other people detained there, I had to wake up at 4 a.m. on my court dates to be bussed to the borough where my case was. I think now about how many millions of dollars were wasted on transit alone. Having one jail in The Bronx that is far more accessible, instead of a makeshift floating jail and an island penal colony in the Long Island Sound, is one way of eliminating this waste of time and money and reconnecting people to due process.

 

Another key connection between Rikers and The Boat is the general corruption and dysfunction they both breed, by being out of sight and out of mind for most New Yorkers. When I was there, two officers on The Boat were open gang members, flashing signs to everyone. I watched officers do nothing to intervene when an old man was beaten..

 

As New York City moves to a jail system that is both smaller and less isolated, we must ensure that the way DOC operates is brought out of the shadows as well. That starts with transparency, like publishing disciplinary records for correction officers, and we must also continue with accountability, like disciplining officers who abuse their power, and firing the ones in leadership positions who don’t hold their officers and staff accountable.

 

The Boat and Rikers are also notoriously ill-equipped to deal with the medical and mental health needs of the people detained there. I was dealing with many mental health issues during my detention, which they responded to by medicating me heavily for my time there. I didn’t shake the medication until a good two years later, when I was upstate at Franklin Correctional Facility.

 

The unfortunate death of Stephen Khadu on The Boat this past September reminds us that medical care there is still deficient. We need replacement facilities with more accessible and well-designed clinic areas, and we also need oversight to ensure the detained people receive quality care. At the same time, we need to invest in meeting people’s mental health needs before they enter the court system or engage with police, as laid out in the NYC Roadmap for Mental Health Resources and Diversion.

 

Both Rikers and the Boat are filled with people who have been failed by our social safety net, who are then subjected to conditions that no human being should have to endure. It’s time to put them out of existence.

 

Edwin Santana is a community organizer at Freedom Agenda, a member-led project, dedicated to organizing people and communities directly impacted by incarceration to achieve decarceration and system transformation. Santana writes from his experience about why the Vernon C. Bain Center “VCBC” aka “The Boat” needs to be closed as part of the plan to close Rikers Island.

  

Editor’s Note: The Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center (VCBC) is an 800-bed, jail barge used to hold inmates for the New York City Department of Correction. The barge is anchored off The Bronx’s southern shore, across from Rikers Island, near Hunts Point. It was built for $161 million at Avondale Shipyard in Louisiana, along the Mississippi River near New Orleans, and brought to New York in 1992 to reduce overcrowding in the island’s land-bound buildings for a lower price. Nicknamed “The Boat,” by prison staff and inmates, it is designed to handle inmates from medium to maximum-security in 16 dormitories and 100 cells.