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City Council strikes deal ahead of jails vote
Borough-based facilities will be reduced as a result of the expected drop in jail population
BIKING FOR A CAUSE
Queens families joined forces in Sunnyside on Saturday for the
third Sunnyside Family Fun Bike Ride. The event celebrates the
neighborhood’s protected bike lanes and emphasis on sustainable
transportation. Photo by Dean Moses
BY BILL PARRY
With the City Council
poised to vote Thursday on
the controversial land use
plan to build borough-based
jails in order to close Rikers
Island, a new deal has been
struck.
Councilwoman Karen
Koslowitz, Speaker Corey
Johnson and council members
representing Brooklyn,
the Bronx and Manhattan
— where the new jails have
been proposed — announced
Tuesday that the new borough
based facilities will be
reduced by an average of 90
feet, which is equivalent to
nine floors.
The deal was reached as a
result of the expected drop in
the average daily jail population,
community engagement
and design-efficient improvements.
The maximum height
for each facility will be significantly
reduced from
its original plan; the first
proposal called for jail towers
ranging from a 450 feet
height to 245 feet, but the new
proposal ranges from a maximum
0f 295 feet to 195 feet.
In Kew Gardens, where
Community Board 9 voted
unanimously against the
plan to build a new jail at the
old Queens Detention Center,
the revised proposal reduces
the building from 270 feet to
195 feet, and from 27 floors
to 19.
“The last several months
I have been adamant that the
proposed size of the boroughbased
jail in Kew Gardens
needed to be significantly
reduced,” Koslowitz said.
“As a result of difficult negotiations
with the administration,
I am pleased to have
reduced the height of the facility
by close to 100 feet, and
cut the number of beds that
the facility will house nearly
in half.”
The design changes are
in response to the blowback
raised by the four communities
that will host the jails
during a difficult public review
process, which for the
first time featured different
sites in four boroughs..
“The administration’s
commitment to reducing the
height of the four planned
borough-based jails is another
step in the right direction,”
said Councilwoman
Adrienne Adam, chair of
the Subcommittee on Landmarks,
Public Sitings and
Dispositions. “This revised
plan will only reduce capacity
but will allow the facilities
to better integrate with
the surrounding neighborhoods.”
The original facilities
were designed with expected
average daily populations of
5,000 by 2026, but that estimate
is down to 3,300, a new
figure which will mark the
lowest jail population in New
York City in a century.
“Just a few years ago,
the Lippman Commission’s
projection of a 5,000 average
daily population was considered
to be overly optimistic,”
Johnson said. “To now reach
3,300 is an extraordinary
achievement, and the culmination
of years of hard work
to move away from the failed
policies of mass incarceration,
But we will not rest. We
will keep fighting to bring
this number down even further.
New York City should
be a model of progressive
criminal justice reform nationwide.”
The reduction in the scale
of the jails working in conjunction
with the steady drop
in prisons populations likely
means a 26-vote majoring on
the plan paving the way for
the closing of the Rikers Island
prison complex.
“Having a jail population of
less than 4,000 people was considered
unthinkable in New
York City just five years ago,
but the work of legislators,
advocates, criminal justice
experts and the NYPD in New
York has made the impossible
possible,” said Councilman
Donovan Richards, the chair
of the Committee on Public
Safety. “Focusing on keeping
nonviolent offenders out of
jail, investing in communities
and making a serious commitment
to vocational training
and programming will help
us reach that reality. This is
only the start of the work that
needs to be put in to reform
a horrible system that led to
the loss of too many lives and
turned minor offenders into
lifelong victims of the criminal
justice system. I look forward
to continuing the work
needed to ensure that these
plans are executed responsibly
and compassionately by
2026.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry
by e-mail at bparry@schnepsmedia.
com or by phone at
(718) 260–4538.
Vol. 7 No. 42 xx total pages
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