Image copyright AP Image caption The mayor says closing Rikers would be "long and arduous"

Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced his support to close New York City's notorious prison on Rikers Island.

Mr de Blasio said closing Rikers would be "long and arduous", but that local officials and stakeholders had a "moral obligation" to do so.

The mayor said on Friday he was developing a plan to close the prison within 10 years.

He had previously said that replacing the massive jail complex would be too expensive.

"It will take many years. It will take many tough decisions along the way, but it will happen," he said at a press conference on Friday.

Mr de Blasio said that closing the prison, which houses about 10,000 inmates, would require cutting the jail population roughly in half.

"The length of this process will also require continued investment in the facilities and conditions on Rikers Island that remain key to rehabilitation efforts for thousands of New Yorkers in the years ahead," he added in a statement.

Details of the plan to close the prison have yet to be released.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The Rikers Island bus: A journey like no other

An independent commission, led by the state's former chief judge, has been reviewing options to close Rikers as part of a larger probe into the city's criminal justice system.

The commission was created following a series of brutality cases revealing questionable practices and corruption at the prison complex.

One of the recommendations included moving inmates into a system of smaller jails across the New York City boroughs at a cost of $10.6bn (£8.4bn), according to US media reports.

The mayor, who is up for re-election this year, has previously said that shutting the prison was a "noble idea" but would cost the city billions of dollars and take years to close.</s>The mayor of New York City has vowed to close the notorious prison on Rikers Island within 10 years. Mayor Bill de Blasio has also promised to replace the violence-hit correction home with "at least a few new facilities" to lock up inmates elsewhere in the city.

"It will take many years. It will take many tough decisions along the way, but it will happen," De Blasio said at a press conference on Friday (31 March).

Closing the shutters of Rikers would be "long and arduous", but local officials and stakeholders had a "moral obligation" to do so, he said. The whole process would require reducing the jail population by roughly half, he added.

"The length of this process will also require continued investment in the facilities and conditions on Rikers Island that remain key to rehabilitation efforts for thousands of New Yorkers in the years ahead," the mayor said in a statement.

However, he has not yet revealed the details of the plan, the BBC reported.

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who was present at the news conference, supported De Blasio's effort and said she was open to the possibility of a jail in her own district, which covers East Harlem and the South Bronx.

De Blasio's announcement came as a surprise for some because the mayor had previously rejected the option of closing the prison.

The mayor, who is up for re-election in 2017, had earlier said the idea was "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".

Following a series of brutality cases that revealed corruption at the facility, an independent commission had been looking into the option of closing the prison complex.</s>On Friday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio voiced support in closing Rikers Island, a jail marred with a lengthy, contentious history.

“It will take many years and it will take many tough decisions along the way, but it will happen,” he said during an afternoon press conference.

Plans to close the jail permanently are expected to unfold over the next 10 years, but also require an array of logistics that will need to be ironed out. The mayor hopes to reduce the jail population to 5,000 people.

According to The New York Times, the mayor’s recommendation was spurred by a 97-page report conducted independently by Judge Jonathan Lippman spearheaded by the City Council last year.

A top recommendation unveiled in a draft of the report obtained by the Times says the city would plan to move inmates into a system of smaller jails spread across the five boroughs to the tune of $10.6 billion.

Supporters of closing the jail said redistributing the inmates to smaller jails would improve their quality of life and reduce delays shuttling criminal suspects to and from court.

De Blasio faced increasing pressure from prison reform advocates and Governor Andrew Cuomo after numerous incidents of corruption exposed the inner workings of the jail, including police brutality, poor medical attention for inmates and the inhumane treatment of minors in solitary confinement–highlighted by the Kalief Browder case.

Friday’s announcement marks a significant departure in tone from de Blasio who originally said shuttering the jail was a “noble concept,” but would cost the city billions.

SOURCE: NBC New York, The New York Times

Woman Who Spent 2 Years In Solitary Confinement Before Being Cleared To Sue City, Rikers Island Officers

#BlackLivesMatter: Trial Begins For Nine Correctional Officers In Brutal Beating Of Rikers Island Inmate</s>The Rikers Island jail complex, one of the United States' largest jails, is one step closer to shutting down for good. On Friday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he supports a plan to close down Rikers Island within the next 10 years, the New York Times reported on Friday.

De Blasio reportedly agreed to a plan to shutter the massive complex, and said in a news conference on Friday that "New York City will close the Rikers Island jail facility. ... It will happen," the Times reported.

Rikers Island, a complex of 10 separate jails that houses as many as 15,000 people at one time, some awaiting trial and some serving sentences, has been plagued by allegations of abuse and rising reports of violence.

Just in the past year, Rikers has been riddled with public scandal and cases of abuse. In September, the city of New York agreed to pay $5.75 million to settle a lawsuit resulting from the 2013 death of Bradley Ballard, a mentally ill man who died after being locked in a Rikers Island cell for six days. He was reportedly covered in urine and feces when he was found.

Also in September, six ex-Rikers correction officers were sentenced to prison for the brutal 2012 beating of an inmate in their care. In August, a corrections officer was charged with raping an inmate.

And then there was the high-profile case of Khalif Browder, who in 2010 was sent to Rikers at age 16 after being accused of stealing a backpack. He was held at Rikers for three years without a trial, and he spent almost two of those years in solitary confinement, the New York Times reported. In June 2015, Browder died by suicide in his family's Bronx home.

De Blasio's Friday announcement is a reversal of his earlier position, the Times reported. Last year, de Blasio called closing Rikers a "noble idea" but didn't offer his support — but Friday he appeared to have changed his tune.

The Times reported that de Blasio will likely support a plan that builds on the recommendations of an independent commission assembled last year to study the jail complex. The commission reportedly recommended closing Rikers and opening smaller jails spread out among the city's boroughs; such a plan would cost more than $10 billion.</s>New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday that Rikers Island will close, reports the New York Daily News.

From the New York Daily News:

“It will take many years. It will take many tough decisions along the way, but it will happen,” de Blasio said at a City Hall press conference.

Rikers has become a symbol of dysfunction and despair in recent years as harrowing tales of abuse and neglect have piled up.

The mayor’s promise to replace it with smaller jails scattered around the city, while ambitious, was light on details.

Closing the dilapidated jail complex — which entered the national spotlight again after the June 2015 suicide of 22-year-old Kalief Browder — will take up to 10 years and prisoners would be shuttled off to other facilities, reports USA Today.

Former Inmate And Criminal Justice Reform Advocate Fights To Have Rikers Island Closed</s>One of the world’s largest prison complexes is to close, it has been announced, after the mayor of New York revealed he is to shut the doors of the infamous Rikers Island prison after years of debate about the controversial facility’s use.

The violence-plagued 413-acre correction complex is currently home to around 10,000 men and women - about 80 per cent of whom are locked up awaiting trial.

New York tabloids are full of almost-daily stories of attacks inside the prison and poor conditions, and abuse of both prisoners and staff.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the disgraced former head of the IMF, was held there in 2011 while awaiting charges for sexually assaulting a New York City hotel chambermaid.

Bill de Blasio, the mayor, made the announcement on Friday, following the conclusion of a report by Jonathan Lippmann, New York state’s chief judge.

"New York City will close the Rikers Island jail facility," said Mr de Blasio. "It will take many years. It will take many tough decisions along the way. But it will happen.

"We look forward in working together in the years to come to make this a reality.

"This is the first time in 85 years, since Rikers Island open in 1932, that the official policy of New York City will be to close. It is a historic occasion."

Last year Mr de Blasio publicly rejected the idea of closing Rikers, calling it a “noble concept” but saying it would cost “billions and billions of dollars” and leave the city with nowhere to lock up its criminals.</s>Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed Friday to close the jail on Rikers Island within the next ten years and replace it with several different facilities that improve conditions for both inmates and guards.

“It will take many years. It will take many tough decisions along the way. But it will happen,” he said at a City Hall press conference.

The announcement comes ahead of this weekend’s release of a report, prepared by a blue-ribbon panel, that will call for the jail’s closing. The report is expected to recommend smaller jails in each borough, but de Blasio stopped short of supporting that specific plan.

“I’m working from a neutral position of saying I only know this: We will need a few more facilities,” he said. “There’s no assumption on the number or location or how many.”

The news was greeted with celebration by advocates for criminal-justice reform. (See New York’s in-depth 2015 feature story about Rikers.) Seymour James, the head of the Legal Aid Society, said “the dream of closing Rikers Island will finally become reality.” He added that the Rikers Island jail, which opened in 1931, is a “long scourge to this city besetting justice, perpetuating recidivism and destroying black and brown communities.”</s>Rikers Island, the largest jail in the country notorious for violence within its walls and described by some as “the worst place on Earth,” will be closed, city leaders announced Friday.

“It will take many years. It will take many tough decisions along the way, but it will happen,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

The mayor said he and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, an outspoken proponent of closing the jail, have agreed on a 10-year timeline to shut down the facility.

As of 2016, Rikers’ population was its lowest to date, with just over 10,000 inmates being held at the 85-year-old jail complex where individuals are held on charges as they wait for a trial.

Still, despite record-low population, violence continued to climb. In 2015, there were 9,424 assaults at the jail, the highest in five years. In 2016, there were nearly 12,000 instances of violence.

The closing was primarily prompted by the memory of Kalief Browder, who at 16 was arrested and held for three years on Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime. His tragic story was highlighted in a Spike TV seven part series, which is executive produced by Sean “Jay-Z” Carter. Browder spent more than 800 days in solitary confinment, often thrown into violent fights with correction officers and other inmates which were caught on camera. He died by suicide at age 22.

“The death of Kalief Browder was a wake-up call to this city,” de Blasio said. “The No. 1 reason we lost Kalief Browder was because he was held in solitary confinement … and that doesn’t exist anymore” for young inmates.

As of Friday, there are 9,500 individuals in custody in city jails. That number must be reduced to 5,000 before Rikers can be closed, de Blasio said.

“Rikers Island is an example and an expression of a major national problem. the mass incarceration crisis did not begin in New York City, but it will end here,” the mayor said.

“We are going to end the era of mass incarceration by making this important change.”

The next step is to determine how the city can hold thousands of inmates without the use of Rikers, de Blasio said. A report on the jail’s future by a panel commissioned by Mark-Viverito will be revealed on Sunday.</s>At a hastily-arranged press conference held in the City Hall Rotunda on Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced that “New York City will close the Rikers Island jail facility” within a decade.

“This is a historic announcement,” the mayor told reporters. “We now have a real plan. This is a day New Yorkers have been waiting for.”

The announcement comes only two days before the release of a long-awaited report on criminal justice reform in New York City headed up by former New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman. The Lippman Commission held town hall meetings across the city, consulted experts, and invited members of the public to submit their views on the issue of closing Rikers Island.

Yet both the mayor and the speaker claimed to have not read the report, which was commissioned by Mark-Viverito in 2015 and leaked to the New York Post, which broke the story last night. The mayor said he was announcing the decision now, because “we are the deciders,” referring to himself and Speaker Mark-Viverito.

“We have to see this through. The speaker and I came to the point of realizing we had an agreement on the key elements. It was time to say that.”

While the mayor said that the city would draw down its jails population from 9,300 to 5,000, he refused to state why that number was necessary to close Rikers, and admitted that his plan was more of an “outline” than a written proposal.

“It’s not a publishable plan,” the mayor said. “When I say we have a plan, we have the outline of what we’re going to do. It’s enough for me to call it a plan because we have timelines, we understand what it’s going to take.”

Both the mayor and the speaker refused to say whether the construction of a new jail facility on Rikers would go forward. Construction on that 1,489-bed jail, was approved under Mayor Bloomberg, began in mid-to-late 2016, but was paused to allow the Lippman Commission to finish its work and issue its report.

“We’re not ruling in or ruling out anything,” de Blasio said. “I have no preconceived notions, literally none.”

Practically, the City faces major obstacles in actually closing the facilities on Rikers Island because the decision means that smaller jails must be constructed in each borough to accommodate the prisoners. Those jails will have to face the City’s formidable ULURP process against serious community opposition.

“Those of us that are in this battle have a responsibility to challenge every individual in this city to look at the incarcerated people with humanity,” Mark-Viverito said. “After decades of having a system that what it wants to do is strip away the dignity of individuals that have had some level of interaction with the criminal justice system, we trying to bring some humanity back.”

She added, “Are we gonna give people a second chance? Or are we gonna write them off?”

De Blasio promised a “full open public process. Nothing happens unless the full city council votes out in the open for it.” He also noted that Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature will be essential in shutting the jail down. “The State has to help us improve the way the courts handle cases, because a big piece of the population on Rikers is folks awaiting trial.”

“I feel like the work begins here,” said Glenn Martin, who helped spearhead the movement to close Rikers as the founder of JustLeadershipUSA, a group advocating the reduction of the American prison population by half, by 2030. “It took Close Rikers twelve months to convince the mayor of New York City. I’m confident that we can turn our efforts toward the City Council and convince them too.”

The Lippman report will be released to the public on Sunday at 11 a.m.</s>Rikers Island Could Be Closed And Replaced With Smaller Jails Around New York City

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to close the city's notorious Rikers Island jail. But even he acknowledges that the process will not be quick or easy.

"It will take many years," de Blasio said at a news conference today at City Hall. "It will take many tough decisions along the way. But it will happen."

There are currently about 10,000 inmates at the Rikers Island jail complex, most of them waiting for trial. Amid reports of widespread violence by inmates and guards, the push to replace Rikers has been gaining momentum.

Last year, de Blasio called that a "noble concept." But he stopped short of endorsing the idea because of concerns about the high cost. His administration pushed to reform Rikers Island instead. Now de Blasio is throwing his support behind a plan to phase out and replace the jail over the next decade.

The pressure to close Rikers Island has been mounting since a scathing report issued by the Department of Justice in 2014 that found a "pattern and practice of excessive force" against adolescent inmates at the jail. That pressure grew after the suicide of Kalief Browder, a young man who was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack. Browder spent three years at the jail — much of that time in solitary confinement — before the charges were dropped.

"The death of Kalief Browder was a wake-up call to this city," de Blasio said. "His death shook the whole city and opened everyone's eyes and made people think twice."

An expert panel that's been studying the issue for more than a year is expected to release its recommendations on Sunday. According to a draft plan obtained by The New York Times, the panel recommends replacing the Rikers Island complex and building smaller jails in each of the city's five boroughs, at a total cost of more than $10 billion.

De Blasio would not say where those new jail facilities might be located. Any potential locations would require approval from the city council, and would likely face significant local opposition.

"Right now, Rikers is an abomination," said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, because inmates are "warehoused" on an island in the East River between Manhattan and Queens, far from their families and friends. "That does not help anyone on a path to rehabilitation," Mark-Viverito said, "so the idea of a community-based approach is laudable, I think. And it will have to lead to tough conversations and tough decisions."

Mayor de Blasio, who is running for reelection this year, said he was reluctant to close Rikers Island until a viable replacement was in sight. But de Blasio says falling crime rates and bail reform efforts convinced him that the city jail population could be brought down to about 5000 within a decade, making the plan to replace Rikers possible.

"A year ago, we didn't think it could be done," de Blasio said. "It would been irresponsible for me to say we had a plan if we didn't have a real plan. We now have a real plan."
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announces that he is developing a plan to close the Rikers Island prison within 10 years.