After delays, new czar sees opening to revive Rikers closure push
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One-on-one with city’s new close Rikers czar Dana Kaplan.
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Lawmakers demand details about Rikers grievance overhaul
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The City Council this week demanded the Department of Correction answer long-ignored questions about how it's changed – or hasn’t changed – its often criticized process for fielding and addressing complaints detainees make about conditions on Rikers Island.
Read MoreCity to pay over $5 mil to families whose loved ones overdosed on Rikers
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The city has agreed to pay nearly $5.2 million to the families of two men who died on Rikers Island of methadone overdoses, including one man from Queens whose family said the Department of Correction hid information about their loved one’s death.
Read MoreCity misses deadline to release Rikers shutdown plan
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The city blew past a legal deadline Friday to release a detailed plan for closing Rikers Island, leaving its long-delayed effort to shutter the dangerous jail complex without a clear path forward.
Read MoreCity begins testing path to enact long-stalled solitary ban
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The city’s Department of Correction may soon begin to implement parts of a local law banning solitary confinement in the city’s jails, nearly two and a half years after the bill was first passed.
Read MoreCity appoints first ‘close Rikers czar’ to oversee delayed jail shutdown
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The city has appointed its first-ever “close Rikers czar,” tasking a longtime criminal justice reformer with getting its long-delayed plan to shutter the troubled jail complex back on track.
Read MoreConstruction of new Brooklyn jail hits milestone as Rikers closure moves forward
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The final beam was placed Wednesday atop the $3 billion Brooklyn borough-based jail, which will one day be the first facility to be completed as part of New York City’s long-delayed plan to close Rikers Island.
Read MoreNew leadership meets again at Rikers Island
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City Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers’ first visit to Rikers Island came shortly after her election in 2021, when the jails were in an acute state of crisis.
Read MoreCity to open long-delayed Bellevue jail ward as Rikers closure effort restarts
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The city on Wednesday will welcome patients to a long-delayed jail ward at Bellevue Hospital, finally putting to use a 104-bed unit that has sat unused since early 2025.
Read MoreAdvocates push city to revive long-ignored part of Rikers shutdown plan
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Advocates are urging the Mamdani administration to transfer a long-vacant Rikers Island jail facility out of Department of Correction control, saying the city must revive a jail decommissioning process that came to a complete halt under former Mayor Eric Adams.
Read MoreMonitor raises alarm over missing fire safety info on Rikers Island
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The Department of Correction has stonewalled a court monitor looking for answers about fire safety practices in the city’s jails, even as more than 40 fires were started by detainees over the last weeks of 2025, according to a new report.
Read MoreAnother detainee death at Rikers marks second in less than a week
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A 49-year-old man from Queens awaiting trial on Rikers Island died on Sunday, becoming the second detainee in the troubled jail complex to die in the last week.
Read MoreDetainee dies on Rikers Island as new leadership takes over troubled jails
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A 39-year-old man died on Rikers Island on Thursday, marking the first death in the dangerous jail complex this year and the first since Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office.
Read MoreStaffing woes continue to stall opening of completed Bellevue jail ward
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The city still doesn’t have a timeline to open an already-constructed hospital jail ward meant to hold detainees with serious physical illness, despite new leadership in City Hall and the Department of Correction, who say they are fully committed to reversing the massive delay.
Read MoreFormer Rikers officer sentenced to two years in prison for sex abuse
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A former Rikers Island correctional officer who was convicted last December of sexually abusing a woman in his Queens home was sentenced to two years in prison on Monday.
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