The state of the City’s changing strategy to replace Rikers Island with four borough-based jails
In October 2019, the City Council adopted a plan that authorized the building of four jails, one in each of four boroughs, except Staten Island, and prohibited the housing of incarcerated people on Rikers Island after 2027. Based on the jail population projections produced by the City at the time, the system was designed to accommodate an average daily population of 3,300, including 250 therapeutic beds in hospitals. Since that time, the jail population has not reduced at the expected pace, and just this week, the administration said it did not expect to meet the 2027 timeline. In addition, said the city’s budget director, the cost of the facilities has grown from roughly $8.7 billion to $15 billion.
How many people will the proposed borough jails hold?
Note: In the absence of complete information from the City, this account of the current status of the plan is cobbled together from a variety of public statements, including the budget director’s testimony on March 4, 2024, the deputy mayor for operations’ statement at a press conference on Feb. 27, 2024, an op-ed co-authored by the mayor on Dec. 15, 2023, as well as an array of statements from the Board of Correction, referring to meetings with the administration and some from FOILed documents purporting to show the city’s plans.
When will the new jails be built?
Note: City Budget Director Jacques Jiha acknowledges that the jail construction timetable has slipped: “We know it’s not going to happen by 2027,” he told the City Council this month. In Brooklyn, the city’s Department of Design and Construction has said the old Brooklyn House of Detention will be entirely dismantled by the end of the second quarter of 2023; a contract schedules the completion of a replacement facility for 2029. In Manhattan, the north tower of current facilities has been dismantled; no design-build plans or completion dates have been announced. In Queens, early works and demolition has begun, but no design-build plans or competition dates have been announced. In the Bronx, site preparation has begun, but no design-build plans or completion dates have been announced.