City Hall Still Planning For Shutdown Of Rikers Island Jails, But Is Mayor

By Reuven Blau, Haidee Chu, Stephon Johnson, THE CITY

December 31, 2022

At the close of Mayor Eric Adams’ first year in office, it’s not completely clear whether he wants the cells at Rikers Island to stay or go.

The ambitious City Hall plan to shut the sprawling and isolated jail facilities there — a legacy of the previous administration — is still officially moving ahead despite Adams calling the massive shift into question because of a steady rise in the number of detainees.

Yet he also spent much of his freshman year pushing state lawmakers to make it even easier for prosecutors to lock people up.

New, smaller lockups are set to be built in every borough except for Staten Island and are required to be complete in 2027 when the city will be legally prevented from using Rikers Island as a jail.

The city has begun to demolish the old jails in Downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, and last year began construction on a parking lot for a new jail next to the Queens courthouse. In The Bronx, site preparation is underway at the Mott Haven location that was formerly an NYPD tow pound.

But the plan to close Rikers calls for the city’s jail population to drop to 3,300 people — a benchmark that Adams has repeatedly said he has no intention of reaching.

More People Behind Bars

Citing the rising jail population, the mayor is now calling for some sort of “Plan B” as the head count is expected to hit 7,000 next year, Department of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina testified to the City Council earlier this month.

“Kudos to Molina for being honest and candid — that we need to look at this plan and we need a Plan B,” Adams told THE CITY. “And, because this is costing us close to $10 billion, we can have a better use of our tax dollars and I stand with him and I agree with him. And I think the City Council must reassess this plan.”

That $10 billion figure is up from an original projected cost of $8 billion, due to inflation, according to an October report by the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, often known as the Lippman Commission.

Scrapping the shutdown plan and modernizing the facilities on Rikers instead, however, would cost 15% more than the $10 billion price tag and “take years longer,” the report said. The smaller, borough-based jails should save the city an estimated $2 billion annually in operating costs “thanks to improved staffing ratios and fewer people in jail,” it said.

“Rikers is a decrepit incubator of violence, unsafe for staff and the huge numbers of people with severe mental illness and drug addiction it holds,” Zachary Katznelson, executive director of the Lippman Commission, told THE CITY.

“Nearly 90% of the people there are pre-trial, waiting on average 283 days for their day in court, keeping victims waiting for answers and accountability,” Katznelson said. “If the state and city can together take commonsense steps like ensuring speedy trials, providing supportive housing, and…