Darren Mack is co-founder and co-director of Freedom Agenda, an organization devoted to decarceration and system transformation, including closing the Rikers Island jail. In commenting on New York City mayor Eric Adams plan to allow ICE to operate on Rikers Island, Darren Mack pointed out the history behind the name. Richard Riker was a New York City judge who worked with slave catchers and the kidnappers who captured fleeing enslaved people and free Black New Yorkers to send them to slavery in the south. Darren Mack joins us from New York City to discuss this history, the need to close Rikers Island, and this historical connections with the modern day carceral state.
