NEW YORK—After years of debate and planning, Rikers—one of America’s largest jail facilities—will be shut down and replaced with four smaller facilities.
Claims of rampant abuse, violence, and corruption have soiled the facility’s name: a stain the City Council voted to completely remove on Oct. 17. As part of his decarceration plan, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed shutting down Rikers in 2017.
Two years later, the island jail will not only be shut down—four smaller modern jails will be built in four of New York’s boroughs. Some council members are worried that this $8 billion dollar plan is unnecessary and dangerous.
“These are not good places to build skyscraper jails; in fact, no place is good for skyscraper jails,” said council member Robert Holden (D-Queens) in an interview with The Epoch Times. “The only place to rebuild any jail is on Rikers Island.”
Here is my official statement on the vote to close Rikers Island, which I read during the stated meeting today: pic.twitter.com/DPlZCD0Qv4
— Robert Holden (@BobHoldenNYC) October 17, 2019
Holden said he has not heard a rational explanation as to why the jail is not being improved on the island. The city’s plan only explains that the jails are outdated, and the closer inmates are to their families, the better.
According to the city, the borough-based jails would are “designed to reduce violence with improved lines of sight due to modern layouts, smaller and more manageable housing units, and better monitoring practices.” The plan is to also equip them with programming spaces and visitation spaces inside and outside.
Council Minority Leader Steven Matteo (R-Staten Island) said in a statement that the plan is “ill-conceived, ambiguous, and extremely costly.”
Like Holden, he believes it is dangerous.
“It is contingent upon further reducing a jail population, which, by the administration’s own admission, is already filled with serious and violent offenders,” Matteo said. “Thus, it will require putting more potentially dangerous offenders back on the street, jeopardizing public safety.”
My statement on why I am voting no on today’s proposal to close Rikers… pic.twitter.com/1zDL6KPMOL
— Steven Matteo (@StevenMatteo) October 17, 2019
The city’s authorities plan to shut down Rikers and reduce the inmate population to 3,000 by 2026. The inmate population currently stands at about 7,000.
Four smaller jails will be built in Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. Part of their inception will be the closure of three jails in two boroughs.
Wei Wah Chin, the president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York, dreads the demolition of the Chinatown jail.
“The dust is one thing, the debree, the toxins,” Chin said. ‘We went through that for 9/11, we should not be doing that again.”
