Mayor de Blasio on Friday vowed to shutter Rikers Island within a decade and replace the violence-plagued correction complex with “at least a few new facilities” to lock up inmates elsewhere in the city.
The mayor was vague on specifics, including the cost of the massive undertaking, what would be done with the Rikers property and the potential loss of thousands of Correction Department jobs.
He also brushed off New Yorkers’ fears about sharing their neighborhoods with dangerous inmates, saying there would be years of “endless hearings” and “multiple votes” by city officials.
“Anyone who’s concerned — first of all, they should know there’s no specific plan in place for any specific neighborhood or any specific size facility,” de Blasio said in a news conference in the City Hall rotunda.
“And if anything started to even be considered, it will trigger a very open, public process — the results of which are not a foregone conclusion.”
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who joined de Blasio at the news conference, allowed for the possibility of a jail in her own district, which covers East Harlem and the South Bronx.
“I’m open to it,” she said.
De Blasio’s announcement marked an about-face from last year, when he rejected calls by Mark-Viverito and Gov. Cuomo to close Rikers.
At the time, he called the idea “a noble concept, but one that will cost many billions of dollars, and we do not have a viable pathway to that at this point.”
De Blasio unveiled his vision for Rikers a day after The Post revealed that a blue-ribbon panel headed by former state Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman would call for the compound’s closure.
Lippman, who was absent from Friday’s news conference, met with the mayor and speaker for 90 minutes Thursday evening and had planned to release his report Sunday, sources said.
Sources said de Blasio intended to steal Lippman’s thunder with Friday’s announcement.
“He wanted credit, and he wanted to preempt Lippman,” a source said.
Asked about the timing of his announcement, de Blasio said it had nothing to with Lippman’s report, which he claimed he hadn’t seen.
“It’s been an ongoing conversation. In the last days, the conversations have intensified . . . It’s as simple as that,” he said.
De Blasio also said a 9 percent overall reduction in major crimes over the past three years had put the city on track to whittle the Rikers population down from 10,000 to 5,000.
Lippman didn’t return messages seeking comment, but his Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform rushed out its final report late Friday afternoon.
In an introductory message, Lippman called Rikers “a stain on our great city” and recommended “without hesitation or equivocation, permanently ending the use of Rikers Island as a jail facility in any form or function.”
The 146-page report suggests:
- Putting half of Rikers inmates back on the streets through bail reforms, an expansion of the city’s “supervised release” program and other measures.
- Building a new jail in each of the city’s five boroughs at an estimated cost of $10.6 billion. Existing facilities in Manhattan, Brooklyn and The Bronx would be replaced with new jails built on city-owned land in Queens and Staten Island.
- Slashing the number of city correction officers by almost two thirds, from 10,500 to 3,700. The number of civilian employees would remain stable “to promote positive, pro-social programming for those incarcerated.”
- Potentially redeveloping Rikers with a third runway for La Guardia Airport, an “energy-from-waste facility,” a sewage-treatment plant and a “large-scale solar energy installation.”
State Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn) called the lack of details in de Blasio’s announcement “rather alarming to many New Yorkers including myself.”
“It is startling to see a conceptual agreement on such a major issue, without an actual plan to maintain public safety in the City of New York,” said Golden, a former NYPD cop.
The Correction Officers Benevolent Association, whose longtime president, Norman Seabrook, was recently ousted over federal corruption charges, declined to comment.
Patrick Ferraiuolo, president of the Correction Captains Association, was upset that de Blasio hadn’t asked the unions “for our input.”
“It’s a big mistake. We have lot of time on the job, a lot of experience,” he said.
“I have no problem with closing Rikers,” he added. “It’s just a question of adequate facilities and making sure that safety is a major concern when they’re built.”
Additional reporting by Shawn Cohen