Mayor Adams Faces Opposition to Plans for Four Borough Jails Replacing Rikers

By:  Ilana Siyance

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is facing explosive opposition for the plan to open four borough jails in place of the ailing Rikers jail complex.

As reported by the NY Post, the issue has become a source of political backlash for the mayor, as many are concerned about the surging crime rate in the city.  Back in 2019, a deal was approved, by former mayor Bill de Blasio and several term-limited City Council members who have since departed, to close Rikers jail complex and replace it with community jails in every borough except Staten Island.  At the time, there was relatively low crime in the city.  Now, post-pandemic, activists are urging council members and the mayor to scrap the plans to build four new jails, and to just to fix up the Rikers complex.

Newly minted Lower East Side Councilman Christopher Marte used his inaugural ceremony on Feb. 27 as an opportunity to bring up the widely opposed “mega jail” planned for Chinatown. “I met with the mayor and his leadership team, and made the case not to build a jail in Chinatown. There were people on that call that want the jail to happen,” Marte said. “But we won the mayor over to our side,” Marte claimed. Later Marte retracted his announcement that he had convinced Adams, telling the Post he was misunderstood.  The councilman said, Adams has yet to decide but he’s “listening to the community.”

In the plan, the four new jails are supposed to be built at: the current site of the Brooklyn Detention Complex in Boerum Hill, at the Manhattan Detention Complex in Chinatown, at the shuttered Queens Detention Center in Kew Gardens, and on the site of the NYPD’s Bronx tow pound.

“The high-rise tower plan is no solution, but simply a transfer of Rikers’ problems into residential communities,” said a Queens activist group named the Community Preservation Coalition.

A spokesman for the mayor responded to say: “Before the new administration took over, the city began to move forward with plans for a Manhattan Detention Complex site as part of its commitment to closing the jails on Rikers Island by 2027. As supported by groups across the city, four new, smaller, more modern facilities close to courts and communities were to be built across the boroughs,” said spokesman Fabien Levy.  “The city will continue to meet with communities, hear their concerns, and incorporate their feedback into the on-going process”.