FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM JANUARY 4, 2018 • THE QUEENS COURIER 11
Mayor says he'll close first of nine jails on Rikers Island this summer
BY ANGELA MATUA
amatua@qns.com / @angelamatua
Less than a year aft er announcing his
10-year plan to shut down Rikers Island,
Mayor Bill de Blasio said today that one of
nine jails will be shut down this summer.
Th e Department of Corrections will
close the George Motchan Detention
Center, which currently houses 600 men
awaiting trail or sentencing. According to
the mayor, this closure is possible because
of the “dramatic reduction” in the jail’s
population.
As of Jan. 1, the city’s jail population
was 8,705, and December marked the
fi rst time the number fell below 9,000
since 1982.
“Every day we are making New York
City’s jail system smaller and safer,”
de Blasio said in a statement. “Th is
announcement is an important step in
our plan to close Rikers Island and create
more community-based facilities to
better serve people in custody and our
hard-working correctional staff .”
Th e move will help DOC reduce overtime
and provide training and support to
staff . Th ere will be no layoff s as a result of
the closure and offi cers will be transferred
to one of the remaining eight facilities.
Th e city will move to a system of smaller,
borough-based jails once the population
is further reduced.
In 2016, then-Council Speaker Melissa
Mark-Viverito proposed shutting down
the jail and she requested that a group
look at the viability of that plan. Th e
Lippman Commission is composed of
criminal justice reform groups, corrections
groups, former prosecutors, the
business community and more.
In its 97-page report reviewed by
Th e New York Times, the Lippman
Commission recommended that the jail
be closed and that instead, inmates be
moved to smaller jails in each borough.
Constructing the jails, which in total
would include 5,500 beds, would cost
approximately $10.6 billion.
In March 2016, rumors began circulating
that College Point would be the site
of one of the smaller jails though the city
never confi rmed the report.
Recently, the city released a
request for proposals to identify
sites for the borough-based jails
and to gauge the capacity of the
three existing jails in Manhattan,
Brooklyn and Queens.
To keep the number of inmates
low, the administration has
launched several programs that
provide an alternative to sentencing.
In 2016, Supervised Release
was introduced as an alternative
to bail. Judges can now assign lowrisk
defendants to a program that
allows them to stay home and continue
working while awaiting trail.
In 2017, the city announced that
all inmates will receive re-entry
services to connect them with jobs when
they are released and fi ve hours of programming
per day for vocational, educational
and therapeutic needs when they’re
serving time. Th ose charged with short
jail sentences for low-level, minor off enses
now participate in services that help
reduce recidivism instead.
In September of 2016, hundreds of people
marched through Astoria demanding
that the city shut down the jail complex.
Organized by JustLeadershipUSA, celebrities,
elected offi cials, community leaders
and citizens participated in the rally.
Some Queens elected offi cials applauded
the mayor’s announcement to shut
down the complex. In a 2017 statement,
Councilman Daniel Dromm said, “Rikers
Island’s culture of violence remains a constant
threat to the well-being of both corrections
offi cers and the incarcerated.”
State Senator Joe Addabbo said the city
should instead reform the jail complex
“instead of creating new problems with
siting facilities across the boroughs.”
Councilman Rory Lancman argued that
the 10-year timeline was too long and in May
2017 he proposed a three-point plan that
would result in three-year shutdown instead.
Currently, existing borough-based jails
only have the capacity to house 2,300
inmates. Th e mayor’s plan, which was
informed by the Lippman Commission
report, outlines a goal to reduce the prison
population to 5,000 inmates before
closing Rikers Island.
“Th e Department of Correction and
the city are committed to closing Rikers
and today, we begin delivering on that
commitment,” said DOC Commissioner
Cynthia Brann. “It is something we are
able to do because of our department’s
reforms in creating safer jails and the
city’s work in creating a fairer criminal
justice system. Under Mayor de Blasio’s
administration, we have reduced our jail
population by 21 percent and have helped
make our jails safer. We will continue
building on our progress in reducing
our jail population through programs
that provide life and work skills that help
individuals in custody re-enter our community.”
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
The city will close the George Motchan Detention Center
on Rikers Island by this summer.
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