Rikers Island

Rikers Island Visit Rules, Mail, and Money: What NYC Families Need to Know

A Rikers Island visit has to be registered in advance, happens only on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and takes place at whichever jail actually holds your loved one. Rikers is still open and still holds roughly 6,500 people, even though the city permanently closed another building on the island in June 2026.

Questions about Rikers Island reach Adam B. Konta and Konta, Georges & Buza P.C. almost every week, from parents, spouses, and siblings who cannot find someone, cannot get a visit scheduled, or cannot tell what a closure headline means for the person they love. This page is part of the firm’s guide to the New York City jail system and sits inside the larger jail and prison guide for New York families.

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How Do You Schedule a Rikers Island Visit?

Register the visit with the New York City Department of Correction before you travel, then arrive inside the registration window on a visit day. Anyone 16 or older needs valid photo identification bearing a signature. Showing up on the island without registering usually ends with being turned away at the gate.

Acceptable identification includes a driver’s license, a passport, an IDNYC card, a military identification card, or an employment identification card paired with a recent paystub. A single visiting group is capped at two adults and one child, or one adult and two children.

Which days apply to your loved one depends on the first letter of that person’s last name, so check the Department of Correction visit schedule for the correct letter before making the trip. Visitors also pass a passive canine screening on arrival, so budget extra time.

The right to receive personal visits is not a courtesy the jail extends. It is set out in the New York City Board of Correction Minimum Standards at 40 RCNY § 1-09.

What Is the Current Rikers Island Visit Schedule?

In-person visits run Wednesday and Thursday with registration from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday with registration from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Fridays are televisits only, scheduled in advance. There are no visits on Mondays or Tuesdays.

That schedule replaced the older seven-day pattern many families still remember. If a page tells you Rikers visiting hours run every day of the week, that page is out of date.

Rikers is reachable only by a single bridge from Queens. The Department of Correction runs free visitor buses on visit days from East 125th Street at 3rd Avenue in Harlem and from Jay Street between Fulton Street and Willoughby Street in Brooklyn, roughly 45 minutes from Harlem and an hour from Brooklyn, plus screening time on arrival. Call 311 for departure times.

How Do You Find Out Which Jail Is Actually Holding Someone?

Use the New York City Department of Correction Person in Custody Lookup and search by name or by book and case number. The result names the current housing facility and basic case information. That tool covers Department of Correction custody only, not NYPD precinct custody in the first hours after an arrest and not state or federal custody.

A newly arrested person can take time to appear, because records lag behind the arrest itself. An empty result on day one usually means paperwork has not caught up, not that something has gone wrong. The Department of Correction Office of Constituent and Grievance Services can be reached at 718-546-1500 during business hours when a person genuinely cannot be located.

Our Rikers Island criminal defense attorneys can often confirm a location faster than a family searching alone, because counsel can schedule attorney visits at any Department of Correction facility seven days a week between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. For the first 24 hours, see the firm’s page on how to find someone after an arrest in New York City.

Is Rikers Island Still Open, or Did It Close?

Rikers Island is still open and still holds roughly 6,500 to 6,700 people, about three quarters of whom are awaiting trial rather than serving a sentence. What closed in June 2026 was one building on the island, the North Infirmary Command, not the complex itself.

On June 29, 2026, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the permanent closure of the North Infirmary Command, a jail that opened in 1932 and had most recently housed people needing infirmary-level medical care. The building was already vacant by then, because its population had been moved out in April 2026. The city then transferred the property to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the mechanism the Renewable Rikers Act, Local Law 16 of 2021, created to keep shuttered jail land from returning to detention use. Large portions of the Anna M. Kross Center and the George Motchan Detention Center were transferred in the same action.

A closure headline describes a plan measured in years. It does not tell you where your loved one sleeps tonight, so confirm the facility each time rather than assuming a transfer happened.

Which Rikers Island Facilities Still Hold People?

Three names families still use are now dead ends. North Infirmary Command closed permanently in June 2026, the Anna M. Kross Center stopped housing people in 2023, and the George Motchan Detention Center has held no one since 2018. Mail sent to any of those buildings will not arrive.

Buildings on Rikers that no longer hold people in custody:

• North Infirmary Command (NIC), 15-00 Hazen Street. Permanently closed on June 29, 2026 and transferred out of Department of Correction jurisdiction.
• Anna M. Kross Center (AMKC), 18-18 Hazen Street. Once the largest jail on the island at 40 acres, it stopped housing people in 2023 and now runs only a kitchen, which is why the name still circulates.
• George Motchan Detention Center (GMDC). Has housed no one since 2018 and now serves as a Department of Correction training annex and officer wellness center.

The facilities the Department of Correction still lists in operation share the same Hazen Street strip in East Elmhurst, New York 11370:

• Eric M. Taylor Center (EMTC), 10-10 Hazen Street
• George R. Vierno Center (GRVC), 09-09 Hazen Street
• Otis Bantum Correctional Center (OBCC), 16-00 Hazen Street
• Robert N. Davoren Complex (RNDC), 11-11 Hazen Street
• Rose M. Singer Center (RMSC), 19-19 Hazen Street
• West Facility (WF), 16-06 Hazen Street

Do not choose from that list by guessing. The Department of Correction lookup names the exact housing facility, and that is the one to use for mail, money, and visits.

Where Are People With Serious Medical Needs Held Now?

Most people needing hospital-level care are now at the Outposted Therapeutic Housing Unit inside NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, at 462 First Avenue in Manhattan. The unit opened in April 2026, cost $241 million, and holds 104 beds staffed by Correctional Health Services clinicians.

The unit gives direct access to Bellevue’s oncology, cardiology, and neurology services while the Department of Correction handles security. Visits enter through the First Avenue entrance and go to the ground floor of the H-building, on the same Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday schedule as the rest of the system.

The bed math matters. The North Infirmary Command held more than 300 people. Roughly 100 moved to Bellevue when the unit opened, and the rest went into other housing on Rikers, so verify before traveling. Two more units are planned by 2029, at NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull in Brooklyn with 144 beds focused on mental health and at North Central Bronx with 92 beds.

One distinction trips families up constantly. The Outposted Therapeutic Housing Unit is not the same place as the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward, which shares the 462 First Avenue address but runs a separate schedule on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with registration from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. and from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

What Is the Rikers Island Mailing Address?

Address mail to the person’s full name and book and case number, then the housing facility name, then that facility’s Hazen Street address in East Elmhurst, New York 11370. There is no single Rikers Island address. Each jail on the island has its own street number.

If you were writing to 15-00 Hazen Street or 18-18 Hazen Street, stop and re-address. Both are closed to mail. For someone at the Bellevue unit, use 462 First Avenue, New York, New York 10016, with the full name and book and case number.

Every letter is opened and screened. Correspondence rights and the limits on them are set out in the Board of Correction Minimum Standards at 40 RCNY § 1-11. Keep mail to personal support and put nothing about the facts of the case in writing, because a screened letter is not a private one.

How Do You Send Money to Someone on Rikers Island?

All you need is the person’s name and book and case number. Money follows the person rather than the building, so a deposit still reaches them after a transfer. The funds pay for commissary items and phone calls.

• Online. Find the person on the Department of Correction inmate lookup site and use the Send Money function to pay by debit or credit card.
• Phone or app. Deposit by card through JPay, the city’s vendor.
• At a kiosk. Use the kiosk in the facility lobby or visit area for cash, debit, or credit.
• By mail. Send a money order or cashier’s check, never cash or a personal check, with the person’s name and book and case number on it.

Are Phone Calls From Rikers Island Recorded?

Yes. Calls from Rikers are recorded and retained, and prosecutors can obtain and use them. In People v. Diaz, 33 N.Y.3d 92 (2019), the New York Court of Appeals held that a person detained at Rikers who is warned that calls are monitored has no reasonable expectation of privacy in them.

That ruling is why so many New York City cases include jail call recordings in the prosecution’s evidence. Calls to counsel are the narrow exception. Everything else is a conversation the district attorney may eventually read aloud.

Telephone access and monitoring are governed by 40 RCNY § 1-10. The practical rule for families is simple. Keep the facts of the case off the phone entirely and save them for the defense. The firm’s page on jail phone calls and visits covers this in more detail, because it remains one of the most common ways people damage their own case by accident.

How Does Being Held on Rikers Island Affect a New York Criminal Case?

Detention makes a case harder to fight and adds pressure to resolve it quickly just to get home. The release question does not close at arraignment. Under CPL § 530.60, a court can be asked to revisit a securing order as circumstances change, and CPL § 510.10 requires the least restrictive condition that reasonably assures a return to court.

Time in custody carries forward. Penal Law § 70.30(3) credits time spent in custody before sentencing against the sentence imposed, which is why accurate custody records matter from the first week.

Conditions on the island have become part of the record a defense can use. Rikers is under federal court oversight in the long-running Nunez litigation, and in January 2026 a federal judge appointed Nicholas Deml as remediation manager with authority to order changes over the city’s objection. In his first report, issued July 14, 2026, Deml wrote that violence remains pervasive and that unconstitutional conditions persist. The city has separately moved to implement Local Law 42 of 2024, the City Council’s limits on solitary confinement.

Documented conditions are sourced material our NYC criminal defense lawyers can raise when arguing for release, when asking a court to revisit bail, and as mitigation at sentencing. Whether any of it moves a particular judge depends on the case and the individual facts.

What Rights Does a Person Held on Rikers Island Have?

People in New York City jail custody hold rights set by the Board of Correction Minimum Standards in Chapter 1 of Title 40 of the Rules of the City of New York, by the State Commission of Correction’s standards for local correctional facilities, and by the federal court orders now governing conditions on the island.

• Visits. 40 RCNY § 1-09 governs the right to personal visits, contact visits, and the grounds for limiting them.
• Telephone access. 40 RCNY § 1-10 governs access to phones and the monitoring of calls.
• Correspondence. 40 RCNY § 1-11 governs incoming and outgoing mail and the limits a facility may impose.
• Health care. Board of Correction health care minimum standards govern access to treatment, which is the framework behind moving medically vulnerable people to the Bellevue unit.

When something on a visit alarms you, write it down with the date and tell the defense.

Will Rikers Island Close, and What Happens After It Does?

The city is legally required to close Rikers by August 2027, and it will not happen on that timeline. Mayor Mamdani has called the deadline practically impossible to fulfill. The four replacement borough jails are projected to open in 2029 in Brooklyn, 2031 in Queens and the Bronx, and 2032 in Manhattan.

Those four facilities hold 4,160 beds combined against a jail population of roughly 6,700, which is the arithmetic driving every current debate about the deadline. Land already transferred off the Department of Correction’s books cannot return to detention use, so the island shrinks building by building rather than closing on one date.

Someone facing federal charges sits outside all of this, held in Bureau of Prisons custody, usually at MDC Brooklyn, which nothing the city does with Rikers affects.

How Do Our Rikers Island Criminal Defense Attorneys Handle These Cases?

The work runs in stages, and every stage has a custody component. Our New York City criminal defense attorneys move on location and release first, then build the record, then fight the case on the evidence.

• Early intervention. Confirm where the client is actually housed, get in for an attorney visit, and stop the client from talking about the case on recorded lines.
• Release. Press the securing order at arraignment and keep pressing it under CPL § 530.60 as circumstances change, with a concrete release plan rather than a request.
• Investigation. Gather the evidence, the custody records, and any documented medical or conditions issues while they are fresh and provable.
• Motions. Litigate suppression and the legal sufficiency of the charges rather than treating detention as a reason to settle early.
• Negotiation. Bring the record, including custody time credited under Penal Law § 70.30(3), to the table instead of negotiating from pressure alone.
• Trial. Try the case when the offer does not match the evidence.

Why Choose Konta, Georges & Buza P.C. for a Case Involving a Loved One on Rikers Island?

Konta, Georges & Buza P.C. is a Manhattan criminal defense firm handling New York state charges and federal charges in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, from pre-arrest investigation through trial, sentencing, appeal, and post-conviction relief. Cases stay in house and are not routed out.

Adam B. Konta, Robert W. Georges, and John P. Buza handle criminal defense, civil rights, and police misconduct matters, so the same firm fighting the charge understands what happens inside the jail while the case is pending. See the firm’s New York criminal defense practice page.

Contact a Rikers Island Criminal Defense Attorney

Rikers changes slowly, and a criminal case moves faster than the buildings do. If someone you love is in Department of Correction custody, the next steps in the case matter more than the headline. Contact Konta, Georges & Buza P.C. and let our Rikers Island criminal defense attorneys help.