As borough based jails progress, crisis continues
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City officials say they are making progress toward implementing the borough based jails plan, including on the Kew Gardens facility seen here. Rendering via the Mayor’s office
By Jacob Kaye
Members of the New York City Council’s Committee on Criminal Justice gathered Monday to get a status report on the borough based jails plan – however, the current crisis on Rikers Island, at times, proved more pressing.
The borough based jails plan, which would see the closure of Rikers and the creation of five smaller jails, is well underway, according to city officials.
“The city is currently on track to build a borough based jail system and completely close Rikers Island by 2027,” said Stanley Richards, the first deputy commissioner of programs and training at the Department of Correction. “We have a moment in this city to ensure that the jails that we create reflect the values of humanity, first humanity for our officers, the conditions that they work in speak to the values we placed on the job that they do, the humanity of those who are detained and the values of the community from which they come.”
However, as the city advances toward its goal, City Councilmembers, advocates and loved ones of incarcerated people testifying Monday said that the city has skirted its duty to those locked up and working in the current jail facility in crisis.
Amidst the pandemic and a historic shortage of correctional officers, over a dozen people have died on Rikers Island this year, making it the deadliest year since 2016. This past year has also seen an increase in the number of use of force incidents, according to the federal monitor appointed to oversee the jail. In the wake of the staff shortage, officers who do show up for shifts have been forced to work for 24 hours straight, often without breaks.
“The degree of civilization in the city can be judged by entering its jail, and it would be fair to say that we are living in a state of barbarism,” said Darren Mack, the co-director of Freedom Agenda. “I urge [the City Council] to move forward with the borough based plan if we want to rid ourselves of a barbaric system.”
At the core of the city’s plan to construct a jail in each borough and to get off Rikers Island is the need to depopulate the facilities currently on the island. The Department of Correction currently has 11,000 beds available for detainees – the borough based jail plan would see that number reduced to 3,300. Currently, there are around 5,400 people detained by the DOC.
Representatives from the city said they are currently using a suit of tools to continue to drive the incarcerated population down.
“We are employing strategies and investing in the tools that reduce the need for pretrial incarceration, alternatives to incarceration, supervised release, effective reentry services and a fully functional court system are vital to the reduction of the ctcl population,” said Marcos Soler, who leads the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.
As Mayor Bill de Blasio and DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi have said multiple times this year, Soler called on the courts to speed up operations to help reduce the jailed population.
“Since the beginning of the summer 2020, the city has been calling the courts to help and work with us together in addressing the backlog and addressing rising cases involving gun violence as well as other types of cases,” Soler said. “Delays in the processing of criminal cases have resulted in the jail, in my opinion, functioning as a prison, with more people being held for longer periods of time.”
Court appearances are down around 35 percent and pretrial hearings, pleas and sentencing are down around 55 percent when compared to 2019, according to Soler. Court officials say much of the delay comes from the DOC, which has been slow to produce defendants for court appearances due to the staffing shortage.
The city and courts partnered up earlier this year to expedite top count gun cases, a program the Office of Court Administration says is working. In August, there were around 1,800 backlogged top count gun cases inside New York City’s Criminal Courts. On Nov. 8, there were 1,290, a reduction of over 500 cases. Additionally, the courts processed over 760 new top count gun cases in that same period, according to the OCA.
“Neville Chamberlain had nothing on this Mayor and his administration’s misperception and misrepresentation of reality,” said OCA spokesperson Lucian Chalfen. “For a City agency that can’t even accomplish its core function, to house and produce defendants for court proceedings, to say that our conducting 190 felony trials with incarcerated defendants since Labor Day, a pace that would equal more than 750 trials a year, is disingenuous, dishonest and de Blasio.”
Despite the challenges to reducing the population, city officials underscored that the borough based jails, which they say will be more humane and better equipped to provide services to those incarcerated in them, will be ready by 2027.
Under the Renewable Rikers Act, the DOC is required to hand over Rikers facilities to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services every six months –- the first was transferred to DCAS in July.
On Monday, DOC officials said they couldn’t pinpoint which of the facilities on Rikers would be handed over in January, but that they’d be ready.
“It really depends on the population reduction that needs to happen, it depends on an assessment of what facility is the best facility to close down,” Richards said. “It's a very fluid process, but here's what I can tell you – we are absolutely committed to closing Rikers Island.”
When the city does close Rikers, it plans on creating facilities that are “built upon a foundation of dignity and respect,” Richards said.
Construction on the Kew Gardens facility was the first to begin earlier this year. Though the actual jail facility hasn’t gotten underway yet, the city has started to build a parking garage and a community center which will both be adjacent to the jail.
The facility was scorned by protesters, including then-mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, in August. Protesters advocated for fixing Rikers Island facilities instead of building new facilities in the boroughs.
While the borough based jails program presents an opportunity to turn the corner from what has been a chaotic and violent year on Rikers, Zachary Katznelson, the executive director of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, said Monday that there are steps the city can take to get things under control before 2027, including speeding up the timeline.
“Getting off Rikers could not be more urgent,” Katznelson said. “We have to do all we can to close Rikers sooner than the mandatory legal deadline of August 2027.”
Katznelson advocated for more supportive housing as a crime prevention measure, more hospital beds for those suffering from mental illness incarcerated on Rikers and for the conversion of the three state prisons in Manhattan to city jail facilities.
