The Rikers Debate Program Is Slowly Collapsing

Now, the Debate Project is teetering on the edge of collapse.

As New York Focus reported Thursday, a wide range of programming on Rikers Island — therapy, job training, housing counseling, and other social services — has been severely cut back by budget cuts implemented by Mayor Eric Adams this summer.

But the all-volunteer debate program’s woes stem from a different source: a seemingly minor policy change that has made it dramatically more difficult for groups working on Rikers to recruit volunteers.

The debate program is staffed by about half a dozen regular volunteers, a fraction of the 30 it had before the pandemic, said Josh Morrison, a co-founder and board member of the Debate Project. It holds just one session a week, in a housing unit on Rikers that hosts many military veterans, down from a peak of six before the pandemic. When volunteers are sick or out of town, class gets called off entirely.

“I think our students are just grateful that we are there, so they don’t complain” when debate coaches return after a canceled class, said one volunteer, who requested anonymity to prevent reprisals from the Department of Correction, which operates Rikers.

“They’re just like, ‘Hey, we haven’t seen you in a while. We weren’t sure if the program was still happening.’ They’re probably used to programs just not happening.”

Only four dedicated volunteers have joined the Debate Project since Rikers reopened to visitors, Morrison said. Unlike the paid staff of other programs, who attend the sessions as part of their jobs, the debate volunteers are mostly young full-time professionals who have to use paid vacation days to get trained.

“It’s really tedious and it’s a lot to ask of somebody who might never have been in a jail before,” said Mary Crippen, who volunteered with the debate program from 2016 until this month, when she moved out of New York City. “It’s made it so that we can’t open up another class until we find some way around this.”

The Debate Project and other volunteer organizations have asked the Department of Correction to offer the trainings online or at more convenient locations, and at times other than the middle of the workday, but the department doesn’t seem to be interested.

Reached by email, Department of Correction spokesperson Frank Dwyer told New York Focus that the agency “continues to evaluate the location for trainings being offered and other aspects such as accessibility and convenience.”

Dwyer added that the training process has been “streamlined for the Department to remain in compliance with various regulations while also considering the time of the Volunteers/Providers.” Asked how it had been streamlined, he did not respond.

City Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who chairs the body’s criminal justice committee, said she hadn’t been aware of the policy shift before New York Focus brought it to her attention, but plans to look into why it happened. “I don’t see why they would make it more difficult for people to volunteer and do good work,” she said.

“This administration continues to find ways to eliminate as many eyes and ears inside the jail as possible,” she added. An oversight body recently had to sue the jail agency to restore its access to surveillance video. In May, the agency stopped announcing deaths of people in custody.

The Debate Project isn’t the only volunteer group impacted by the training requirement.

“I am having a hard time getting people started again,” said another individual involved with programming on Rikers Island, who requested anonymity to prevent reprisals from the jail agency. The amount of programming that their group offers has halved since before the pandemic. “I would have more if I could get the volunteers on the island,” they said.

Even when potential volunteers are willing to attend the training sessions, the Department of Correction can take many months to complete the paperwork granting them access to Rikers. Sometimes it doesn’t respond at all.

“I don’t think it’s ill will on anybody’s part. I think that there is just too much bureaucracy,” the individual involved with programming said.

“I’d be calling up my dad and being like, ‘Hey, can you look this up for me? Because I’m gonna win,’” she said. Broderick and her debate partner were housed in different units, but other inmates helped smuggle notes and speech drafts between their dorms.

Parts of her personality that had been dormant during the eight years she was addicted to drugs started to reemerge.

“It definitely felt like a place where I could actually use my mind, which I felt like I hadn’t been doing at all,” she said. “It was sort of giving me an opportunity to see what the world is like without drugs.”

When she was released in May 2017, debate volunteers helped her readjust, taking her out to lunch and helping her apply for jobs.

“I had lost all my friends, or they all died,” she said. Because of the debate community, “It felt like I wasn’t coming home to nothing.”

Broderick is currently pursuing a masters degree in social work at Columbia University. Morrison, the debate program’s co-founder, attended her wedding this past July.

“They’re often very, very hesitant to actually get up and give a speech in the class even if they’ve been paying a lot of attention and know a lot about the issue,” said Crippen, the former volunteer. “The most rewarding part is seeing people who have been kind of quiet and shy be like, ‘You know what, no, I know what I’m talking about. And now I’m gonna give a speech.’”

Debates can get personal, especially when they focus on criminal justice topics.

“They can’t help but bring up their own cases, and think about how it would affect their lives, and it can get really emotional,” said Crippen. “And then the following week, we’ll say, ‘Okay, Beyonce versus Rihanna, who’s better?’ to try to just inject a little bit more lightness into the lesson.”