Community Plan

Our Strategic Plan to Ensure Family and People Detained Safety and Support:

Our Commitment:

• Ensuring that family members have access to their incarcerated loved ones and support before and after their visits.
• Centering and amplifying the voices of those directly impacted by violence and conditions at MDC, including incarcerated people and their families without putting them at further risk.
• Ensuring that incarcerated people at MDC are not being retaliated against (through the use of solitary, transfers, and physical violence) for speaking out about their conditions of confinement by keeping attention on the BOP and MDC administration.
• Keeping public attention and pressure on MDC until we receive independent confirmation that conditions are entirely improved.

Concretely, we demand: stable lights, heat, and hot water in all cells and common areas; access to medical and psychiatric evaluation and treatment for all people at MDC; an end to weeks of lockdown and partial lockdown; and resumption of normal family and legal visits. We also demand that no one incarcerated in MDC suffers retaliation for their efforts to bring attention to the life-threatening conditions they have endured for weeks.

Entering, Existing and Exiting Community Plan

Since Thursday, we have been on the ground for 24 hours a day, working in shifts to support family members and document what's happening in MDC (such as how many ambulances have entered and exited the facility, and prison guards unloading riot gear). We have been here supporting family members to and from the trains, passing out metrocards, food, and other supplies (blankets, gloves, hand and foot warmers), and providing temporary shelter,a heated tent, where families can rest.

Thus far, we have seen fewer ambulances roll in at night time. So we have decided to strategically decrease our presence by cutting the overnight shift. Going forward, our hours will be 11am to 8 pm. During these hours, we will continue to support families and community members as detailed above. During the next few weeks we will begin to decrease our hours, but only if conditions improve.

We are in the process of creating a system for families to reach out to us if they need support. To do this, we will launch our MDC Community Oversight System, which will include a text platform and google form for people to document conditions in MDC, stay connected to us, and receive support and amplification of their demands. If conditions improve at the jail, we will wind down our physical presence outside MDC while continuing to organize for all our people to be free.

Because Bureau of Prisons and MDC officials cannot be trusted to tell the truth about what is actually going on in the jail (and have been lying throughout this ordeal), we are collecting and amplifying reports from incarcerated people and their loved ones. Join us at MDC to help record and circulate reports from detainees and their families about conditions at the jail. Sign up for shifts here and follow @NoNewJails_NYC, @Msbritt_305 @blackboikei and @1samanthajoh on Twitter for on-the-ground updates.

There is ongoing litigation in the federal courts about the conditions at MDC. We will continue to pack the court over the coming weeks and support family members in attending hearings. Please follow @NoNewJails_NYC on Twitter for updates about upcoming court dates and ways to support our efforts to pack the courts and support family members’ attendance at hearings.

Finally, join us for a rally at 7 pm on Thursday, Feb 7th outside the MDC. We will show MDC Warden Herman Quay, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and Judge Torres that we’re not going anywhere until our incarcerated community members tell us to.