Plan to close Rikers Island may go to City Council vote this summer

The Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice says if all goes well, the City Council could vote on the plan sometime this summer.

News 12 Staff

Apr 11, 2019, 10:20 PM

Updated 1,834 days ago

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The long-anticipated closing of Rikers Island is slowly gaining headway.
The Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice says if all goes well, the City Council could vote on the plan sometime this summer.
That multibillion-dollar plan would close the eight facilities on Rikers Island, as well as the three remaining detention centers in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan. Four new facilities would be built in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and in the Bronx, to replace the 11 old facilities.
They say the hope is to create more program-friendly detention centers with natural light, more parking and integrated spaces within the communities the inmates reside.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who pioneered the initiative, leaves office in 2021, but the Office of Criminal Justice says they will stay on schedule to finish the project by 2027.


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