In New York City, New Jails Threaten Dreams for True Community Spaces and Restorative Architecture
Shadow Proof
By: Tamar Sarai
In 2019, New York City made the historic pledge to shutter the 89-year-old Rikers Island jail complex by 2026. In the years since, budget restrictions and the pandemic have at once pushed back the proposed timeline and heightened the urgency to address conditions on the island.
Even as the timeline shifts, a highly controversial piece of the plan remains: the creation of four new borough-based jails, intended in-part to replace the city’s existing facilities in Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens. These new facilities, which have been billed as “safer, smaller, and fairer,” are presented by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration as a departure from Rikers’ notoriously dangerous conditions.
However, the creation of new jails could compromise efforts to achieve decarceration and the abolition of detention, which initially animated the campaign to Close Rikers.
