New York City wants to replace its Rikers Island jail complex with “modern” facilities that have natural sunlight and more and larger programming services.
City officials presented plans for four new jails to the City Planning Commission on Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new jails will be built in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx to make up for the closing of Rikers Island scheduled for 2026.
“Our current facilities are designed for a different era of corrections,” NYC Department of Correction Commissioner Cynthia Brann said. “Modern jails have all of these designs in them, and that is what we are going forward with.”
The new jails will be more “welcoming” to visitors with larger and better facilities for inmates, such as classrooms, gyms, and libraries.
Some New Yorkers have pushed back against the plans, which have yet to be finalized and have undergone repeated changes.
“[The plan] keeps changing,” said Aida Vernon, who lives in Queens. “We were initially told it would be a 1,500-bed capacity. Then, it was 1,400. Now, I’m hearing 1,100. But the build envelope is still the same.”
Other New Yorkers have pledged to move rather than live next to a newly built jail, saying the jail’s presence would attract bad actors to the neighborhood.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democratic 2020 contender for president, announced in 2017 that the city would be closing Rikers Island, NYC’s notorious scandal-plagued jail complex. City officials began closing parts of the complex last year.
