Readers sound off on fixing NYC jails, the World Cup and transgender truth

Manhattan: Last week, NYC Department of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina told City Council members that “if nothing changes,” the NYC jail population could increase to more than 7,000 people by 2024. This would surely mean more tragic deaths in DOC custody and worse conditions for officers, who can’t seem to safely manage the number of people in jail already. Those outcomes are unacceptable, and Mayor Adams needs to act now to change course.

New York City is currently funneling more and more vulnerable people into decrepit jails where they aren’t receiving medical care and where the death rate has hit a 25-year high. The number of people in city jails who have a serious mental illness is up more than 20% since Adams took office, and stands at more than 1,000 people today. Of the people being held at Rikers Island, 90% are awaiting trial, but their cases move three times slower than the national average, creating an inflated jail population and incredible frustration.

Theorizing about what will happen if “nothing changes” isn’t leadership, and it certainly isn’t getting stuff done. What is? Building supportive housing, funding community-based treatment and setting up population review teams that have worked in other cities to get people into alternative programs.

New Yorkers know better than to believe filling up Rikers Island will make us safe. Darren Mack, co-director, Freedom Agenda

Hauppauge, L.I.: Re “ ’Pro-mass-shooting’ guy is arrested,” Dec. 18): How does William River Smith, the 20-year-old who regarded the Club Q gunman as a “hero,” regards Black people as “agents of Satan” and preached violence against police officers, not get a lifetime ban from being allowed to own a firearm? How does a two-year ban make our society safer? The gun obsession in this country is truly a mental illness. Greg Arnold

Whitestone: Argentina made a big mistake in taking Angel di Maria out of the game in the last 15 minutes of the World Cup final, and it almost cost them the game. Di Maria and Lionel Messi were the key players and scored the first two goals, and when di Maria was taken out with the score 2-0 for Argentina, the pace of the game changed. Suddenly, Kylian Mbappe was turned loose and carried France for the rest of the game. It was a great game, but I don’t think it would have gone into overtime with di Maria on the field. Dorothy Lyons

East Elmhurst: During this time of the World Cup matches, it was an eye-opener for Hank Gola to write about the soccer great Pelé (”Pelé,” Dec. 18). He was the soccer pearl to grace any soccer stadium. He shared his gift with all and brought love and happiness to the people he met. We all have a gift, let us share it with the people we meet. God bless. Gerson Fernandes

Ozone Park: Once again the Daily News has completely eliminated the New York Rangers from its Monday morning coverage. It was a great game Sunday night with a 7-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks, with a seven-game winning streak alive! Will someone please have a meeting with your sports department and let them know that the NHL, the N.Y. Rangers and MSG are a huge part of New York and so are the fans!? Disappointed! Marie Tibball

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Astoria: Why aren’t the New York Jets and Giants correctly named the Hackensack Jets and Giants? They don’t play or even practice in New York. Martin Warren

East Rockaway, L.I.: Can someone please explain to me what the attraction is of young males wearing their pants way below the waist, revealing most of their butt? I see this trend more and more often now. Tanya Cabrera

Morris Plains, N.J.: Kudos to Voicer Louise Reeves. You nailed it — simple laws of supply and demand and a basic understanding of how business is conducted and the role of the president. Seems ignorant to me for people to make statements blindly, not knowing if they are correct or not. Just ‘cause you hear it or read it doesn’t make it true. Do people think President Biden owns every corporation in the U.S.A? No, he doesn’t. Corporations make decisions on profitability without a care about how it affects people because they answer to majority stockholders who, I assure people, are about profit. You’d think the Keystone Pipeline’s recent spill might give people a clue that it’s open. The extension project was halted because billions have been wasted and it’s 10% completed with no end in sight. Joe Tierney

Manhattan: I am both an NYC retiree and a World Trade Center respiratory patient. Our mayor sent us back into the toxic zone a mere six days after the attack. Due to that exposure, some of my former colleagues are in the ground and others are cancer patients. Now the city is forcing vulnerable retirees into what is essentially a commercial fraud, the Medicare “Advantage” insurance scam. The U.S. Department of Justice has been indicting one of these plans after another for massive Medicare fraud, including overcharges to municipalities for “phantom” procedures while denying patients necessary services. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General reported that these plans result in “worse health outcomes” by delaying and/or denying needed services. Why hasn’t your staff read these reports? I retired after having done cost/benefit and other fiscal analysis for six NYC mayors. Medicare Advantage is a budget-buster and a patient-killer whose only advantage goes to the fraudsters running these plans. Kathryn Nocerino

Far Rockaway: Instead of raising the transit fares, how about you enforce fare payment and enforce the penalties for failure to pay the fare? I have been on the buses and have watched person after person walk right past the farebox! I see it on the subways every day, too, both at my home station in the Rockaways and at the Fulton Center. Additionally, riding the subways has become even more challenging with homeless people sleeping in the cars. One day, there were three people stretched out in one car! So before you go raising fares yet again, try to improve these conditions for those of us who do swipe our MetroCards! Dana Y. Gibbons

Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Every burdensome Con Ed rate hike is fresh evidence of our need to say goodbye to fossil fuels (“Advocates rip Con Ed request to raise rates,” Dec. 16). Shareholders are winning over consumers with every rate hike, especially hikes in the price of gas heating. We know that solar and wind power with ample battery backup are reliable and reliably cheap, locally produced and not dependent on international market forces. We’re on target for a 70% clean electric grid by 2030, so long as our leaders don’t give in to false solutions like hydrogen and renewable natural gas. So with the cost of heating by electricity being significantly less expensive than heating with gas, it is time for Gov. Hochul to rise to the city’s leadership and require cost-effective, energy-efficient all-electric new building construction statewide by including it in her upcoming executive budget. Jeff Schumann

Madera, Calif.: You do not simply wake up one day and say, “Today I am a woman,” or say, “Now I’m a man,” even if you’ve been one all your life. What transitioning requires is coming out from behind a mask that was carefully created from a lifetime of rejection — a lifetime spent in hiding from society’s view of what is male or female. It requires one to completely accept that who we are on the inside is not who other people see on the outside. It requires being the person who makes us happy, not the person our family, friends or society want us to be. Whether that person is male, female, gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer, it is up to us to decide. We must be the person who makes us happy. Robyn Angelique Harvey