City Shaves 1 Year Off Plan To Close Rikers Island

NEW YORK — New York City has shaved one year off of its timeline for closing Rikers Island. The notorious jail complex will now be shuttered and replaced with four new lockups by 2026 rather than 2027, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday.

The effort, which includes the construction of a new jail in each borough but Staten Island, will cost the city $8.7 billion in all from its $116.9 billion 10-year capital plan, de Blasio said.

"We feel confident, looking at everything we know for sure, that we can get the entire building effort done nine years from Day One, so that will be 2026," the Democratic mayor said during his executive budget briefing.

The change comes as the de Blasio administration shepherds the jail plans through the city's land-use process amid vocal opposition from local residents and anti-incarceration advocates. Hundreds of Queens residents debated the plans for more than three hours at a public hearing Wednesday night.

De Blasio first announced in 2017 a 10-year plan to shut down Rikers Island once the city's jail population drops to 5,000. The city has reduced the population to fewer than 8,000 from about 11,000 when de Blasio took office, the mayor said.

Landmark criminal-justice reforms included in the state budget passed earlier this month might reduce that number even further, such as a measure the use of cash bail for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.

That means about 90% of New Yorkers facing criminal charges will not have to spend time in jail as they face charges, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office has said. Pretrial detainees make up about 79% of the city's jail population, Department of Correction statistics show.

While the city is "very encouraged" by those reforms, it has not yet fully analyzed what they mean for the timeline to close Rikers and the size of the new jails, de Blasio said.

The jail plans are currently going through community board hearings. They must be approved by the City Planning Commission and the City Council before they can be built.