Dangerous conditions and staffing dysfunction at Rikers Island may seem without end — but an $8 billion project to replace the island’s troubled jails in the next five years is on schedule.
In Queens, a new parking garage and community space are under construction next to the criminal courts in Kew Gardens, a prelude to the building of a new jail for the borough’s detainees.
In the Bronx, the remains of the old Lincoln Hospital foundation are being removed in Mott Haven to prepare for the borough’s new jail.
Temporary structures are being built to allow movement of detainees in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan’s Chinatown, where the south tower of the Tombs will be demolished to make way for the new jail there.
Meanwhile, six partnerships of designers and construction companies are involved in assembling proposals for the four actual jails, which are supposed to be everything the aged, decaying Rikers facilities are not.
In all, the project – which is being managed by the city Department of Design and Construction – would provide 3,544 jail beds — along with just another 400 or so beds in three city hospitals, mainly for people with psychiatric issues.
“This administration will always follow the law, and the law currently says the jails on Rikers Island must close on time,” mayoral spokesman Fabien Levy said in a statement. “To follow the law and protect the safety of the communities and all involved in the borough-based jail projects, this work is proceeding.”
Some forces, though, want the city to change course.
Councilman Robert Holden of Queens points out the capacity of the system the city is building — about 3,900 beds in all — is lower than the current jail population of nearly 5,500 detainees amid the city’s crime spike.
“The math doesn’t work now,” Holden said. “If the mayor does what he says he’s going to do on addressing crime, the jail population could increase more. Where will the rest of the population go?”
The city’s plan follows a blueprint laid out by a commission led by former state Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman.
Zachary Katznelson, the commission’s executive director, says the capacity is adequate if there’s more supportive housing and the backlog in the courts holding people longer than necessary in Rikers is addressed.
As of Thursday, more than 1,300 people have been held there pretrial more than a year.
“We need to have a concerted effort, and if we do, I think a lot can be resolved maybe even without a trial,” Katznelson said.
Adams administration officials are pinning hopes for the project’s success on more efficient court operations.
“If the courts are functioning properly and efficiently, then the population shrinks and vice versa,” said Levy, the Adams spokesman.
“This is part of why the mayor has been outspoken about supporting the court system in returning to prepandemic functionality,” Levy said in his statement. “We need to be focused on swift and just court processes to help right-size the jail population.”
Darren Mack of Freedom Agenda, an activist group, insists the current planned capacity is fine and the jail population can even be brought below 3,000.
“Anybody who says that’s not enough [beds] has an investment in incarceration,” he said. “To backpedal against what is now the law, it would be subject to lawsuits.”
But Holden’s doubts lead him to believe the city should create a task force to look into building a new jail complex on Rikers.
He argues Mayor Adams could block the borough jails project using a “mayoral zoning override” even if he can’t get support from the Council.
That idea could butt up against a 2019 Council zoning vote that barred any jails from Rikers ever after 2026.
Katznelson says new jails on Rikers would be more expensive than the borough jails because the island is largely landfill, has environmental issues and would be logistically challenging. “It would cost a lot more and take years longer,” he said.
Another proposal that has gotten some political traction but no support from Adams’ appointees is to move a new jail for women out of the planned Queens jail to a former state prison facility in Manhattan, either in Chelsea or along Central Park North.
There has been some community resistance to the new jails based on the idea that jails bring higher crime and lower property values.
But Insha Rahman of the Vera Institute says there’s no evidence jails harm their neighborhoods.
“It’s simply not the case,” she said. “Like many assertions that are about politics, they get made without data or evidence and this is within that vein.”
Rahman says the city could offer each neighborhood a plum to make the jail easier to accept.
“The most important thing the city can do is ignore the fearmongering and develop community benefits agreements,” she said. “There’s been no plan put forward by the city. That’s an important shift that the city needs to make.”
A spokesman for Adams said his administration is committed to hearing community concerns.
“Every part of this is proceeding apace,” said Katznelson. “Everything is on schedule, and there’s no indication at all that anything is being slowed down.”
