New Brooklyn Jail Plans: What You Need To Know

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — Plans to build a new Atlantic Avenue jail in Downtown Brooklyn have are crucial to Mayor Bill de Blasio's aggressive 10-year plan to close down Rikers Island.

And while prisoners advocates and people who work within the criminal justice system have championed the closure of the notorious Rikers complex as a necessary reform, residents across the boroughs have raised big concerns about how the new facilities will affect local infrastructure and why they must be so large.

Here's everything you need to know, from what's planned to what's at stake.

Why Close Rikers Island?

"Rikers Island is a stain on our great City," wrote former New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, the chairman of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform in his 2017 report calling for the jail to close.

The report — the product of a year's worth of interviews with formerly incarcerated people, prosecutors, correction officers, civil rights leaders and more — detailed back-to-back shifts for guards, New Yorkers "put through hell" to see family, and attorneys struggling to visit clients and prepare defenses.

Lippman called Rikers Island "a 19th century solution to a 21st century problem."

Prisoners advocates have also detailed deplorable conditions and violence that cost inmates years and in some instances, their lives.

What's The Citywide Proposal?

Mayor de Blasio first released plans for the four jails — one for every borough except Staten Island — in August 2018. The new buildings are part the mayor's 10-year plan to close Rikers Island in 2027 once the city's jail population drops to 5,000.

Four new jails will be built at the following locations:

• 275 Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn
• 745 East 141 St. in The Bronx
• 126-02 82nd Ave. in Queens
• 124 and 125 White St. in Manhattan

The lockups will be the first project using the design-build method — in which the same contractor handles both the design and construction — to go through the city's land-use process, with the firms AECOM and Hill International on board as project managers.

Initial plans called for larger jails but were shortened by between 30 and 45 feet in March after locals objected to their enormous sizes. The City Planning Commission certified the city's application to build four new jails in March and kicked off the formal public review process.

What's The Brooklyn Proposal?

The City would demolish the existing Brooklyn Detention Center and replace it with a modern facility. The new jail would have housing units for detainees, programming and recreational space. There would be retail and community space on the ground floor.

Brooklyn residents raised concerns during a Park Slope meeting in September that locals had not been involved in the planning process, that the influx of Department of Correction staff would make the area more congested, and that no jail, however modern, could be considered humane.

"Everybody here knows that Rikers is a hellhole, but every single jail is a hellhole," said M. J. Williams, a lawyer and member of No New Jails NYC. "No architect can design away, no coat of paint can cover up the misery, horror and violence of locking people in jail as they wait for trial."

What Concerns Were Raised In Other Boroughs?

Similar meetings in Manhattan and Queens have drawn criticism from locals who fear the jails would put undue stress on their communities' infrastructures. The Mayor's Office also drew ire when a Patch journalist was barred from reporting on what residents believed was a public meeting.

In Manhattan, the mayor's office initially planned to build a 40-story complex on the site of the city's Marriage Bureau in Lower Manhattan, but after a wave of backlash from locals, the city decided to rebuild the existing Manhattan Detention Complex, commonly referred to as "The Tombs."

One meeting in Chinatown became so heated that it was shut down by protesters' booing and chants. Those residents complained that they had no information to critique.

"Our community is being blindsided with this and we still don't have all the facts," said Suzy Hu, 48. "We need detailed traffic studies, we need air quality reports. Where are the facilities in that building even going? How can we give them input when we have a sliver of the picture."

And in Queens, residents raised concerns about emergency services for inmates and parking. It was also disclosed that the mayor's office did not consider or review any alternatives beyond the Kew Gardens site.

What Comes Next?

Plans will be submitted to local community boards, Borough Presidents, the City Planning Commission, City Council and finally the mayor. Progress can be tracked on this City Planning Commission website.

Patch journalists Maya Kaufman, Noah Manskar, Sydney Pereira and Caroline Spivack contributed to this report.