In 2019, the New York City Council and then-mayor Bill de Blasio set a deadline for closing the jail facilities on Rikers Island. As part of that plan, the council authorized the construction of four “borough-based jails”—one in each borough, except Staten Island—and passed a resolution barring the operation of any facility on Rikers Island for the “incarceration of individuals after December 31, 2026.” In 2021, the council effectively extended the closure deadline to August 2027.
Pointing to the “stipulated timeline,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said he will seek to close Rikers accordingly.
Incoming council speaker Julie Menin, by contrast, acknowledged in an interview with the New York Post that while she supports the closure, “there have been enormous delays in the construction of the borough-based jails” that the council will need to “address.”…