On Friday (March 31), New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Twitter that his administration is taking steps to close the infamous Rikers Island prison facility. De Blasio drew praise for his actions from Jay Z and John Legend, keeping in line with a growing sentiment against mass incarceration.
Mayor de Blasio is working in conjunction with Speaker of the City Council Melissa Mark-Viverito in closing Rikers, which will happen over time according to a media announcement.
Jay Z published a rare tweet in support of the move, referencing Kalief Browder, the troubled young man who was imprisoned in Rikers. Browder spent three years on the island and took his own life once he was released. Browder was the subject of the Time: The Kalief Browder Story documentary with Jay Z serving as a co-executive producer.
John Legend followed with a pair of tweets and has long been a vocal critic of prison overpopulation.
“Thanks to @NYCMayor, @NYCCouncil, Judge Lippman, @CloseRikers & @glennEmartin for your commitment to end #massincarceration,” Legend wrote in the tweets. “In closing Rikers, New York City takes a crucial step towards ending #massincarceration. Now the hard work begins.”
Others that have spent time behind bars at Rikers Island include Tupac and Bobby Shmurda.
The tweets from Mayor Bill de Blasio and John Legend can be viewed below.
…the hard work of not breaking the law.
the plan is to get rid of our law and institute sharia law. Look at England, Sweden, and Germany.
No one should be praising that jackass deblasio. The city is a fucking mess, its disgusting, trash all over, homeless people all over grand central, subways, and the streets. He betrayed the NYPD with bullshit raises and has put everyone at a heightened risk. Fuck Billy D-Blasio, fuck the new world order elitist Jay-Z and his hundreds of millions of dollars, and fuck John Legend for uttering anything positive about that national traitor deblasio. We want New York City to be a safe clean place for people, its like the early 1970s all over again in New York these days, just disgusting.
Fuck your cop loving ass.
I love all the good people of New York City and the good people worldwide. What I do not like are liars who institute policies which make our police less effective, misrepresent our school system with grade-fixing scandals and the fundraising scandals. I hate pedophiles and the people like Jay-Z who support pedophilia and the global elitist network. I don’t know much about John Legend, but he gets it too for praising Deblaizo, this city is a mess!
Check BlackLivesMatter’s new Police ranking system. The NYPD, by BlackLivesMatter’s own metrics and measurements is not part of the problem, but part of the soluction. With that said you probably don’t know shit about your favorite artist.
Black Lives Matter has a police ranking system? is that supposed to be a joke? Lets check out the old kkk police ranking system. Oh, doesn’t exist because violent and racist hate groups have no reason to have police ranking system, its so subjective even the kkk wouldn’t embarrass themselves by thinking anyone would take that seriously
To quote Big L, this fool of a Mayor is about to “Increase the crime rate for old time’s sake..”
Respect. I had to listen to the enemy after I see your comment. Real hip hop.
I’m surprised Lil Wayne hasn’t said anything about this yet.
He drinking that cough syrup, woozy
Only a broke Nas stan wouldn’t understand why this move is getting praised. Go back to being broke bums, you pathetic losers.
Like you?
So what exactly does this really accomplish?? Criminals in NYC are still gonna commit felonies and most will be convicted and sentenced to PRISON. Only this time they’ll go upstate and their family and friends will have to travel farther to visit them.
another stupid opinion by jay z
nobody cares. cares everybody, everywhere. plenty of other spots for jay n them purdy lips to get his pillow bite on.
I want to lick king Hova’s booty hole!
A Bigger Colder prison will be built in its place
But what does Ja Rule think?
In order for politicians to be responsive to their constituents, a “recall ” provision must be incorporated
into the City Charter. Upon a city referendum to recall an elected official from his/her office. Recall
is the remedy to control your elected officials put into elected office.
That is very low energy
fuck hiphopdx, they wanna put up a news article about the actions of a politician, but take down posts that explain the politics behind why the closing of a prison is a bad thing for the people of new york and all americans. i.s.l.a.m. is slowly but surely taking over america. you can’t even post on social media or this website’s discussion about all the negatives involved in the integration of s.h.a.r.i.a. l.a.w and the twisted ideology behind it.
Lets close down the all the p.r.i.s.o.n.s., because there will be no need, anyone who disagrees with the i.s.l.a.m.a.c.i.s.t.s. and s.h.a.r.i.a. l.a.w. will be k.i.l.l.e.d. or s.t.o.n.e.d., not j.a.i.l.e.d.. Women will be g.a.n.g. r.a.p.e.d. and m.u.r.d.e.r.e.d. while the main stream media turns a blind eye to avoid having their funding cut off by the globalists who support mass undocumented i.m.m.i.g.r.a.t.i.o.n.(look at Sweden). Pedophiles, r.a.p.i.s.t.s. and m.u.r.d.e.r.e.r.s. will take over the cities draining t.a.x.p.a.y.e.r. dollars and they will eventually take over this entire country if we continue this dangerous trend.
That’s RACIST!!!
Your views are not supported by any actual data. If you REALLY want to address the issues that plague america, you can look at crippling student debt, lack of proper mental health care, diminished funding for education…all while tax cuts for the mega wealthy continue. But if you want to point to brown people because they look different or your perceived adherence to evil “religious doctrine”, then you need to look no further than the Christian Bible which includes verses like “If you reject or abhor my laws, you will eat the flesh of your own sons and the flesh of your own daughters… I do not allow a woman to teach, you have to cut off her hand…If two men sleep together, they will both have to be killed.” Not so nice for a Christian doctrine is it? Face it, your worldview is fundamentally misinformed. You are a puppet thats fallen for the old “lets blame people of color” charade”.
OP is clearly what they call “controlled opposition” judging by his islamophobic views – you know the type: rants about the oh so bad muslims and political left but never mentions who controls the media, hollywood, central banks.. he is a zionist gatekeeper like Alex Jones etc.
also OP probably fully supports the US bombing the shit out of middle-eastern islamic countries (to maintain Israel hegemony there, remember they dictate US foreign policy) and then has the nerve to rant about refugees.
If violence and pedophilia are some of the principals behind the Islamic ideology, you are goddamn right I am Islamophobic. Assume what you want about my views on our military and how it should be used, I also have no vested interest in Israel. I am talking about this country tho, I live in New York and I am sick of Billy D and Chucky Scumer
Studies have shown that increased militarization or increased funding to police, DOES NOT result in lower crime. Often it just results in a degradation of police to community relations and a whopping price tag.
Please understand, the people doing the most harm to America aren’t petty criminals or even foreign extremists. Its the corporate thieves that drain all our pockets and diminish our resources. It’s the DOMESTIC extremists (often troubled white people) that shoot up our schools, kill kids, many who identify as Christian. Let that sink in. If data supports that there are far more Christian extremists actively doing harm to Americans, (Columbine, Sandy Hook, and many MANY more)… then why aren’t we extreme vetting THOSE communities?
Also FACT: the number of Islamist Extremists (meaning the ones that actually want to kill Americans) is estimated at around 100,000-200,000 individuals. The entire population of Muslims in the world is about 1.6 B. In other words, 0.0125%
So literally less than 1% of all Muslims are the violent people you are talking about. Consider your world view against this.
lol so Christians are the ones committing terrorist attacks worldwide? Look at the principals of islam, its pedophilic, that is not up for debate, children are being married to older men, c’mon man don’t defend pedophilia. Whether people follow these principals is another story. And you want to vet American citizens over refugees coming from known terrorist hotspots…. I am talking about a prison being closed down, but anyways what’s the study you reference that shows increased police funding has a negative effect on crime? Better training afforded by funding to the NYPD would benefit the community in my opinion.
The recent terrorist attacks you reference are columbine (over 17 years old), and sandy hook (over 5 years old). Way to stay current, how about that terrorist attack in Russia? How about Paris? How about Sweden? How about London? How about Egypt? How about Orlando? How about San Bernadino? Who takes responsibility for these attacks? Check out the recent terrorist report, please educate yourself on the horrible situation going on around the world and step out of your sheltered existence. Islamicists who don’t target Americans are still terrorists, and look at the devastation just one person can do. You think the possibility of importing even 1 terrorist to 100,000 terrorists isn’t a big deal? that is fucked…
i told a funny and real story about how jay z sucked my dick and this shitty site deleted my comment, they are trying to cover the reality of jay z being gay
Trust money hungry Jigga to use it as an opportunity to plug his movie. End mass is incarceration though