Forum Photo by Horacio Rodriguez
The City plans to finally shutter the infamous detention facilities on Rikers Island in favor of smaller, community-based jails.
By Michael V. Cusenza
Four modern, neighborhood-based detention facilities—complete with community space, ground-floor retail, and parking—in four boroughs will replace Rikers Island when the infamous jail complex is closed, according to plans recently unveiled by de Blasio administration officials.
The centers in Queens (126-02 82nd Ave.), Brooklyn (275 Atlantic Ave.), Bronx (320 Concord Ave.), and Manhattan (80 Centre St.) also will provide a safer environment to work and will allow people in jail to remain closer to their loved ones, as well as offer quality health, education, visitation and recreational services that will help people reintegrate once they return to their communities, the City pledged.
“Now we can move full steam ahead on the engagement and planning for our new facilities so we can close Rikers as fast as possible,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, who wants to shutter the island in the next 10 years.
Thanks to historic reductions in inmate population, the City announced in January that it will permanently padlock one of Rikers’ nine jails by the end of this summer. The closure of the George Motchan Detention Center would be made possible by the reduction of the City’s jail population, which fell below 9,000 for the month of December 2017, a record-low figure last reported in 1982. As of Jan. 1, 2018, the Department of Correction’s jail population was 8,705.
In March 2017, de Blasio and then-City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced the plan to leave Rikers Island. That roadmap included a series of strategies to bring the jail population down even further to 5,000 people and transition to the local, borough-based jail system.
According to the administration, each borough facility will contain approximately 1,500 beds in order for the City to meet the needed 6,000 beds to accommodate an average daily population of 5,000 people, while allowing space for population-specific housing requirements, such as those related to safety, security, health, and mental health, among other factors, as well as normal fluctuations in the jail population. Currently, existing borough-based facilities only have the combined operational capacity to house approximately 2,400 people.
The plans also boast hundreds of parking spaces, community space and ground-floor retail as well as on-site support services.
The proposal will need to go through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure – the public scrutiny process that includes hearings and recommendations by the community board, borough president, the City Council and the City Planning Commission. In February, de Blasio and Council Speaker Corey Johnson agreed to consolidate the proposal to renovate or construct jails in Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx into a single ULURP process, which will allow for a more expedited review. An application will be submitted for certification by the end of the year and the design process could begin as early as next summer.
“Closing Rikers Island and opening community-based facilities is not only beneficial for New York City’s correction officers and incarcerated population, but also beneficial for the Kew Gardens community,” said Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills). “The new facility in Kew Gardens will bring significant economic development, and provide hundreds of new parking spaces for the community. I look forward to taking the next steps in opening community-based facilities.”
