Steinem pushes for shuttered prison as women’s lockup site

Cultural icon Gloria Steinem has thrown her support behind turning a shuttered state prison on Central Park North into the new jail for women, the Daily News has learned.

Women and transgender people are currently housed in the 40-year-old Rose M. Singer Center at Rikers Island known as “Rosie’s.” The city’s borough jails plan calls for the Singer center’s replacement to be an addition to the future new men’s jail in Kew Gardens, Queens.

But advocates with the Beyond Rosie’s Campaign say that idea is not suitable and want to repurpose the former Lincoln Correctional Facility in Harlem, which closed in 2019.

Steinem (photo top), the author and founder of Ms. magazine, agreed in a letter sent to Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams.

“Women and gender-expansive at Rosie’s deserve safety, dignity and justice, and New York City can deliver with a Women’s Center for Justice at Lincoln,” Steinem wrote in the letter. “It would make us all proud to know that New York could set a precedent for decarceration.”

Steinem wrote that the current plan would simply reproduce the poor conditions for women and transgender people at Rikers. “[It] would only replicate or worsen the abuse, trauma and neglect they have already been subjected to,” she wrote.

“As is, their needs are not being uniquely served: Roughly 81% have mental health concerns, an estimated 77% have experienced domestic violence, and most are mothers and primary caregivers.”

Among other supporters of the proposal are Suzanne Singer, the granddaughter of late prison reform activist Rose M. Singer, and the Rev. Calvin Butts of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church and a range of other Harlem leaders.

The majority of people housed at the Rose M. Singer Center are from Manhattan — thus making Lincoln the best facility to take its place, Steinem wrote.

Lincoln has a capacity of roughly 284 beds, but it was underutilized for years prior to closing, with only about 130 people housed there, largely on work release.

The Adams administration has yet to offer any concrete view on the Lincoln proposal as the initial site work for the jail in Queens continues.