REUTERS
In 2019, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio scored progressive points by signing into law his “smaller, safer, fairer jail system,” pledging to invest $8.7 billion to build four borough jails that would house no more than 4,000 inmates total, and to close Rikers Island by 2026.
None of those three numbers — $8.7 billion, 4,000 inmates or 2026 – was true.
Mayor Adams should scale down this program before it consumes the city’s scarce resources and sucks up even more money needed for fixing bridges, schools and parks.
The “borough-based jails” program that Adams inherited in 2022 never made sense.
The problems that plague Rikers — falling-apart buildings, inmates isolated from visitors and lawyers — can be corrected in place.
The city can build new buildings there, and can provide frequent and free bus transportation (and even a ferry) for visitors.
Nor are borough jails — one each in the main commercial areas of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx — going to accomplish what the advocates promised.
They’re not going to “change the culture” of Rikers Island, because the same correction management and union system is going to move from Rikers to the new jails.
They’re not going to better integrate inmates into their communities, because the inmates will not be in their borough communities; they will still be . . . in jail.
This was bad enough when the jail construction program was set to cost $8.7 billion.
But, as First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright warned last week, “The cost has almost doubled” — to at least $15.6 billion.
And not even the first new jail — in Brooklyn, now under construction for a projected $3 billion — will be finished before 2029.
Finally, New York is never going to get its jail capacity below 4,000.
That is, not unless it releases suspects — 6,351 are at Rikers now — accused of such infractions as mass-casualty drunk-driving homicide, gang murder and violent robbery out on the streets.
No one is sitting at Rikers for evading the subway fare, or for stealing once — or twice, or 30 times — from the Duane Reade.
That’s right: Because nobody wants to acknowledge reality, taxpayers are spending close to $16 billion to build jails that will be overcrowded and not fit for purpose the day they open.
That is a lot of money.
To put it in perspective, $15.6 billion is more than the MTA expected to raise from 30 years’ worth of congestion-pricing revenue in order to do things like build the Second Avenue Subway.
It’s 15% of the city’s total spending on infrastructure over the next five years.
To compare, by the time the Brooklyn jail will be ready for inmates, we’ll spend $19.3 billion upgrading schools and $11.6 billion on transportation, including city contributions to mass transit.
We’ll spend just $3.8 billion on parks.
And that’s if everything goes well: Any recession or decline in tax revenues means we’ll have to cancel big-ticket expenses.
As Wright said last week, “We did not have the bond capacity” — that is, the ability to borrow — “to even fund the construction until we just got the [state] budget passed.”
Albany’s budget allowed the city to increase its debt.
But we can’t repay that debt unless the economy grows quickly.
Most investments in physical assets add to the tax base, by making the city more attractive to live and work in — but jails plunked down in central areas take away from the city’s pleasantness, and thus subtract from the tax base.
Adams should use these years of delay to his advantage.
OK, the Brooklyn jail is under construction, but the other three are not.
Contracts for the Queens ($4 billion) and Bronx ($3 billion) jails aren’t finalized yet, and the city still can’t even find a contractor for the Manhattan jail.
Why not build the Brooklyn jail first, and learn from its first few years of operation what’s working and what’s not?
Does the “culture” of the jail improve in a new high-rise building?
Does inmate violence go down?
Can we fit more beds in without stressing inmates and officers?
Meanwhile, the city could explore a bid process for building new jails on Rikers.
That might not only be cheaper, but nicer as well, with possibilities for well-secured outdoor recreation that high-rise buildings in urban downtowns don’t have.
Since we’re going to need capacity above what’s planned at the four-borough jails anyway, why not just construct one new building at Rikers now (or soonish), and see how well it works?
If he takes such an approach, Adams won’t leave a jails mess, as de Blasio did — but an array of options and information for his eventual successor.
Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.