COUNCIL VOTES TO CLOSE RIKERS
Council votes to padlock jail by ’26
Mayor de Blasio’s plan to shutter Rikers Island by 2026 and replace it with four smaller, borough-based jails cleared the City Council on Thursday over fierce protests.
The $8.7 billion project was greenlighted in a series of votes, bringing new lockups to every borough except Staten Island. The Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan legs of the plan each passed by tallies of 36-13, while the Bronx part passed 35-14.
Because the four new jails will have about 3,500 beds compared with the 15,000 at Rikers, some of the no votes came from leaders who feared de Blasio’s plan will leave no room to lock up threatening suspects.
“Thus, it will require putting more potentially dangerous offenders back on the street, jeopardizing public safety,” warned Councilman Steven Matteo (R-SI) in voting against each portion of the plan.
Added Queens Democrat Robert Holden, “The closing of Rikers Island has become a religious movement, a symbol of criminal-justice reform that will not actually solve the justice system’s problems. The plan before us today completely lacks common sense.”
Bronx Councilman Rafael Salamanca Jr., another Democrat, voted against the new facility in his borough because he first wants de Blasio to close the Vernon C. Bain Center, a jail barge floating off Hunts Point.
Still, despite bipartisan reservations, the plan easily garnered enough votes to reach the simple majority of the council’s 51 members needed for approval.
The four new jails are slated to be built on the site of the NYPD’s Bronx tow pound, at the nowclosed Queens Detention Facility in Kew Gardens and at the current sites of the Brooklyn Detention Complex in Boerum Hill and the Manhattan Detention Complex in lower Manhattan.
De Blasio and other proponents of the plan are banking on recently enacted criminal-justice reforms sufficiently shrinking the city’s jail population — currently about 7,000 inmates — to 3,300 by 2026, when Rikers is expected to close and its replacements open.
Following the council’s decision, de Blasio held a congratulatory press conference at City Hall to thank everyone involved in getting the legislation passed.
“Today we made history! The era of mass incarceration is over. It’s over!” he said.
Council Speaker Corey Johnson agreed, calling Rikers “a stain on New York City.”