Hats & Gloves Campaign For Riker’s Island

New York, NY, January 28th, 2022

Tomorrow a winter storm will tear through New York City bringing extreme cold and inches of snow - we, the interns and formerly incarcerated staff at WITNESS, are gravely concerned that the 5,600 people incarcerated at Rikers Island and across the New York City jail system are freezing. Last week, it was below 0 degrees. Those incarcerated do not have the basic, necessary items to stay warm. Witness to Mass Incarceration’s (WITNESS) Hats and Gloves Campaign has been approved by New York Department of Corrections (DOCS) to provide all 5,500 people incarcerated on Rikers Island and across the NYC jail system with hats and gloves as extreme cold grips the city. We urge the public to donate as little as $10 to provide an incarcerated person with a pair of gloves and a hat. In solidarity, we can raise the $55,000 necessary to provide hats and gloves to each person incarcerated in New York City.

This comes as hundreds of incarcerated people on Rikers Island protest the life-threatening conditions rampant within the facility. The New York Times reports what inmates describe as dangerously cold conditions at Rikers as temperatures have dropped in the last weeks. Research has shown temperatures are anywhere from 10 to 20 degrees colder inside prisons. Hundreds of those detained on Rikers Island have organized in protest against the prison’s inadequate - and plainly neglectful - response to the unmitigated spread of COVID-19 across the facility. Those incarcerated on Rikers and in jails across NYC are subjected to overcrowded, unsanitary, and violent conditions even as severe winter weather hits a city reeling from the Omicron wave. WITNESS needs your support in providing immediate material relief in the form of hats and gloves to incarcerated people throughout New York City.