Mayor DeBlasio backs plan to close Rikers Island

New York City mayor DeBlasio announced Friday that he wants to close the city’s troubled Rikers Island jail, though he stated that doing so would be difficult and take at least a decade, reports ABC.

“It will take many years and it will take many tough decisions along the way, but it will happen,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

The mayor said the jail’s daily population would have to be decreased to half of what it was just a few years ago.

New, smaller jails would also have to be opened elsewhere in the city; a potentially lengthy process considering the possibility of neighborhood opposition.

ABC Reports:

The announcement comes ahead of the planned unveiling of recommendations by an independent commission established by the City Council after a string of brutality cases that exposed poor supervision, questionable medical care and corruption at Rikers. The commission has been considering options for Rikers as part of a broad examination of the city’s criminal justice system.

Rikers is a 400-acre (162-hectare) former dump near the runways of LaGuardia Airport. It is accessible only by a narrow bridge between it and Queens. For decades, the city has sent its inmates there while they await trial, where they’re housed in 10 jail facilities.

Advocates for prisoners have been arguing that smaller jails, based in the city’s neighborhoods, would be better able to provide services and reduce delays getting criminal suspects to and from court.

Glenn Martin, an inmate advocate who has pushed a campaign to persuade the mayor to close the jail, said De Blasio’s decision is “a step in the right direction.”

“Countless failed attempts at incremental reform have proven that the only viable solution is to close Rikers,” he said.

A 2015 settlement of civil litigation over widespread brutality led to the installation of a monitor responsible for overseeing the city’s progress in adding thousands of surveillance cameras and stricter policies on use of force.

The Associated Press and other news outlets first exposed conditions on Rikers in a series of reports in 2014. Those reports included the suicide of Kalief Browder, who hanged himself after spending three years jailed — mostly in solitary — without trial and a homeless ex-Marine who essentially baked to death in a hot cell.

Photo Source : CBS News