Last week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani doubled down on an impossible promise.<\/p>\n
In October 2019, the City Council passed a law<\/a> that banned the use of any part of Rikers Island to house incarcerated persons after Aug. 31, 2027.<\/p>\n But under current circumstances, that closure plan violates state law.<\/p>\n Under the plan, the city must replace the jails on Rikers with \u201cborough-based\u201d facilities in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx.<\/p>\n Yet construction on these new jails, now expected to cost a stunning $13.7 billion, has barely begun.<\/p>\n Groundbreaking for the first of the facilities, in Brooklyn, was accomplished just this month.<\/p>\n It\u2019s scheduled for completion in 2029 <\/a>\u2014 two years after the Rikers closure deadline.<\/p>\n The other three jails won\u2019t be completed until 2032, at best.\u00a0<\/p>\n When Mamdani toured Bellevue Hospital\u2019s<\/a> new ward for inmates on Tuesday, he cheered the $241 million site as a \u201cmajor step\u201d that \u201cbegins the process of closing Rikers Island once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n He admitted, though, that the legal deadline is \u201cpractically impossible to fulfill,\u201d blaming his predecessor\u2019s \u201clack of interest\u201d in following the closure law.<\/p>\n Rather than forging ahead with shuttering the nearly century-old jail complex, however, the mayor should take the opportunity to pause and reconsider the entire plan.<\/p>\n First, he should ask the City Council to repeal the law\u2019s ticking closure clock.<\/p>\n The arbitrary deadline isn\u2019t tethered to the reality of nonexistent new facilities \u2014 and that makes it illegal.<\/p>\n Under New\u00a0York state\u2019s Correction Law, a municipal government can\u2019t close an operating local jail unless and until it provides a functional replacement.<\/p>\n Those facilities must be \u201cdesignated or erected\u201d to serve as its new \u201clocal correctional facility,\u201d the statute states.<\/p>\n The City Council thus has no power to close Rikers unless adequate and functional replacement jails are already in place. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The mayor and the council must further correct the most alarming aspect of the closure plan \u2014 its reckless and illegal reduction in the city\u2019s capacity to hold inmates.<\/p>\n The Rikers jail complex, which can hold nearly 15,000 detainees, now houses about 7,000, a relatively low number historically.<\/p>\n During the early 1990s, for example, Rikers housed over 20,000 people.<\/p>\n Combined, the four borough-based jails will have the capacity to hold about 4,000 inmates.<\/p>\n The city has never held so few people in detention, except briefly during the 2020 pandemic.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s Rikers-closure website describes the purpose of the closure plan succinctly: \u201cNew York is leading a historic decarceration plan to close Rikers Island and replace it with a smaller network of safer modern jails.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words: Deliberately build too little jail capacity<\/a>, and force the city to shrink the incarcerated population.<\/p>\n But state law doesn\u2019t permit any city or county to construct jails that lack adequate capacity to carry out their basic functions.<\/p>\n The Correction Law mandates that local jails \u201cshall be used\u201d for the \u201cdetention\u201d of those held for trial, and for the \u201cconfinement\u201d of persons convicted of crimes.<\/p>\n Likewise, the state\u2019s Criminal Procedure Law governs bail and sentencing.<\/p>\n When a judge elects to hold a defendant charged with a felony in custody pending trial, that defendant is committed \u201cto the custody of the sheriff\u201d \u2014 meaning the Department of Correction.<\/p>\n Certain convicts are required by law to be so \u201ccommit.\u201d<\/p>\n The local jail, therefore, must by law have the capacity reasonably necessary to perform its mandatory function of fulfilling judicial bail and sentencing orders.<\/p>\n Closing Rikers would leave the judiciary without sufficient detention capacity to carry out its powers and duties.<\/p>\n If the city can\u2019t comply with lawful judicial orders, judges could hold the city in contempt of court.<\/p>\n