The Customary Rule of Law in the Colony’s Core
Riker’s Island is not a deviation from justice; it is the purest expression of the customary law governing the “native” population in New York. Mamdani’s concept of decentralized despotism is incarnate here: a space where the state grants its local administrators–correction officers, prosecutors–immense, arbitrary power to rule through violence and terror, all under the guise of “law and order.” The routine brutality, the endless delays, the dehumanization–this is not a system failure but its intended function: to manage and control a population deemed surplus to the needs of capital. A feminist and Muslim perspective forces us to see the specific horrors for women and religious minorities trapped within its walls. The solution, following Mamdani’s logic, is not reform. It is abolition. We must dismantle this despotic institution entirely and shift resources toward addressing the root causes of harm through community-based justice, recognizing that the colonial prison cannot be redeemed, only destroyed.
