By Jacob Kaye<\/p>\n
Dana Kaplan will have a lot on her plate when she officially begins her job as the city\u2019s first-ever close Rikers czar this month. <\/p>\n
The City Hall alum, who, under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, helped craft the city\u2019s first plan to shut Rikers Island and replace it with four borough-based jails, will soon be in charge of coordinating the city\u2019s efforts to close the dangerous jail complex, which has fallen years behind schedule. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has vowed to recommit the city to the closure plan, tapped Kaplan last month to get the plan back on track. <\/p>\n
It won\u2019t be easy. <\/p>\n
The first of the four borough-based jails won\u2019t be completed until 2029, two years after the current deadline to close Rikers. The other three jails won\u2019t be completed in full until 2032. And when they open, they\u2019ll have the capacity to together hold 4,400 detainees, more than 2,000 detainees fewer than the current population on Rikers Island. <\/p>\n
As Kaplan works toward Rikers\u2019 closure, she\u2019ll do so amid a restructuring of who has power over the city\u2019s jail system. Beyond a new mayor and new Department of Correction commissioner, a federal judge recently appointed a \u201cremediation manager\u201d to take control of major decisions previously made by the DOC in an effort to tamp down violent conditions in the jails. <\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Kaplan is optimistic that the city is on a new path to close Rikers, despite the delays and dysfunction that have previously been associated with the plan. <\/p>\n
Kaplan recently sat down with the Eagle to discuss her new role, the challenges the city faces in closing the jails on Rikers, the timeline for closing them, and more. <\/p>\n
The Eagle: How would you describe your overall mission as the city\u2019s first close Rikers czar?<\/p>\n
Dana Kaplan: I would say that I was appointed because my job is to make sure that the city delivers on closing Rikers Island. We want to ensure that this happens. I’m going to be coordinating across agencies to reduce the jail\u2019s population, working with the Department of Correction and the Department of Design and Construction to advance the borough-based facilities and plan for that transition. I’m also focused on improving conditions now, but it’s a focus on a comprehensive plan, because this is such a multifaceted effort. <\/p>\n
Eagle: Having helped craft the original plan to close Rikers and having previously had a role in City Hall to help achieve that plan, how has it felt over these past four years to have watched the Adams administration sort of slow-walk or, in some cases, ignore the plan altogether?<\/p>\n
DK: I think I shared the frustration of many to see the lack of urgency and leadership from the last administration on the closure of Rikers. I do want to acknowledge that there were many dedicated civil servants working within the agencies themselves to advance the closure of Rikers Island, but what was lacking was a real commitment at the highest level from City Hall. And unfortunately, I think the current status of the plan, in terms of the length of delays, is an outgrowth of that. My mission really is to return that singular focus at a City Hall level, making sure that Rikers Island closes. <\/p>\n
Eagle: Now that you’re back in City Hall, is there one thing, or a couple of things that you hope to address right away, or that you think the city could address right away to get the plan back on track?<\/p>\n
DK: One thing I was excited about before I took this position was seeing that the Bellevue therapeutic units finally opened. That project has been languishing for years, and the fact that within the first 100 days of the administration, we saw 100 beds open at Bellevue to move 100 people off of Rikers who have acute medical needs is an indicator of progress. That’s certainly heartening. When I officially take the helm, the first question that I’ll be asking alongside my other city partners is, what is the possible fastest timeline that we can do to ensure the closure of Rikers, and how do we move ahead with that? But I’m also going to be really focused on how we can safely reduce the jail\u2019s population. There are a number of different strategies and opportunities to do that, all of which I think will have a beneficial impact on community safety. That’s another mission, and part of this plan that I\u2019m really excited to take on. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jacob Kaye Dana Kaplan will have a lot on her plate when she officially begins her job…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-228519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}