Mayor Adams’ workplace mentioned Tuesday that his workforce has regarded into the potential of constructing a psychological well being facility as a substitute of a jail on the Manhattan website chosen to turn out to be one of many 4 borough-based lockups meant to exchange Rikers Island.
Liz Garcia, a spokeswoman for Adams, confirmed the talks in regards to the Manhattan location after the mayor advised reporters in a press convention that the Brooklyn borough-based jail website can be an “excellent place” to construct a psychological well being facility as a substitute of a detention advanced. Garcia mentioned Adams meant to seek advice from the Manhattan borough-based jail website in Chinatown.
On Friday, Garcia mentioned Adams’ administration is constant to construct borough-based jails, however didn’t deny conversations have taken place internally about doubtlessly establishing housing as a substitute on among the websites. Garcia did say Friday that Adams’ workforce has not checked out turning the Brooklyn borough jail website right into a psychological well being advanced.
However on Tuesday, Garcia mentioned, in actual fact, that the Brooklyn website might be getting checked out, too, as a possible location for a psychological well being advanced.
“Everything is on the table,” she mentioned.
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Todd Maisel/New York Day by day Information
An aerial view of the Rikers Island jail advanced in New York Metropolis. (Todd Maisel / New York Day by day Information)
The proposed Manhattan borough-based jail has drawn intense pushback from native elected officers and neighborhood advocates who say it’d be a foul match for the neighborhood. It’s unclear if an effort to show the location right into a psychological well being facility as a substitute would quell these considerations.
Adams has for months mused about making one of many borough-based jails a psychological well being facility with out specifying which website he believes can be greatest suited. By some estimates, about half these housed on Rikers are affected by some kind of psychiatric incapacity.
The behind-the-scenes efforts to rethink the plan comes regardless of town already being effectively delayed on the legally mandated timeline to shutter Rikers and change it with borough-based jails by 2027. Underneath contracts signed for all 4 borough-based jails, none of them are slated to be accomplished for opening by then, when Rikers by regulation have to be closed.
Adams reiterated Tuesday that he doesn’t consider the jail advanced can shutter on time.
“I think it’s pie in the sky to close in 2027,” he mentioned, including the regulation to shut Rikers “was flawed from the beginning.”
Amid the talk over the plan, it stays unclear what would possibly occur to the detainees presently housed on the island. Even when the venture was accomplished on time, the census on Rikers far exceeds the deliberate capability of the borough jails.
The inmate inhabitants on Rikers has swelled below Adams, with greater than 7,000 presently held there, most of them awaiting trial. That’s much more inmates than might be accommodated within the borough jails, that are designed to have roughly 4,100 beds, making the chance Rikers could have keep open previous 2027 much more doubtless.
Impartial Rikers Fee govt director Zachary Katznelson famous his group has really helpful constructing 500 new forensic psychiatric beds “in a separate facility — in addition to the four safer, modern jails near the courthouses, not instead of one.”
“That’s how we can best support crime victims, incarcerated people, and correctional staff,” Katznelson mentioned.
Protestors march from Metropolis Corridor Park to Foley Sq. to attend a rally calling for the closing of Rikers Island Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams for New York Day by day Information)
Any modification Adams would search to the borough-based jails plan might face a litany of hurdles. The regulation states Rikers, which has for many years been stricken by violence and harmful situations, should shut by August 2027 and get replaced with the 4 borough jails.
Adopted in 2019, the regulation would have to be modified by the Metropolis Council to ensure that any potential tweaks to turn out to be a actuality, and Council Democrats have made clear they’re not seeking to change the underlying plan. If Adams went forward with a modification to the plan with out Council approval, he’d doubtless face lawsuits.
Adams hasn’t formally launched a proposal to the Council for how you can change the Shut Rikers plan.
Initially Revealed: Might 6, 2025 at 5:13 PM EDT
