Seth Wenig
If Mayor Eric Adams isn’t onboard with the brand new borough jail slated for Chinatown, he ought to scrap Invoice de Blasio’s plan solely and construct a brand new, fashionable facility on Rikers as an alternative.
Rookie Decrease East Facet Metropolis Councilman Christopher Marte says he misspoke when he advised an appreciative viewers that he’d talked Mayor Adams out of the jail tower slated for Chinatown. In any case, his “mistake” factors to how a lot the group hates the concept. However that’s true of all 4 neighborhoods focused for brand spanking new jails beneath the “shut Rikers” plan.
The undertaking already is lifeless within the water. It was “fast-tracked” at $8.2 billion final yr, however would value way more now that inflation is raging, and might solely detain 3,544 inmates — far quick of the present jail inhabitants and even the all-time low of 4,702 set in the course of the pandemic.
At the least put this disaster-in-waiting on maintain, Mr. Mayor, and have a look at constructing fashionable services to carry at the very least 5,000 on Rikers Island — which might absolutely be completed lengthy earlier than de Blasio’s fantasy jails. (Complaints about how laborious it's to go to the island and so forth may be mounted much more simply than shoehorning jails into busy residential ‘hoods.)
Dealing with actuality is the perfect factor to do for the neighborhoods now beneath menace, for the town as a complete and for these New Yorkers who actually should be jailed someplace.
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