New Women's Jail Should Be Located In Harlem: Borough President

HARLEM, NY — A Harlem correctional facility that's being phased out of the state's prison system should be considered as the future jail site for New York City women after Rikers Island is closed, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said in her official recommendation on the city's borough-based jails proposal.

The Lincoln Correctional Facility on West 110th Street is a better location for New York's new women's prison because of its central location and the fact that it is already built as a correctional facility, Brewer said in her recommendation. Re-purposing the Harlem site into the city's new women's jail could allow the city to close facilities on Rikers Island sooner because it would eliminate the need to build a new facility.

The city's current plan is to build a new women's jail facility in the Kew Gardens neighborhood in Queens. Brewer's recommendation says that women's justice advocates are concerned that the city's chosen site "may not be the most accessible." A centrally-located facility is important because many women who are detained in New York City's jails are the sole heads of the household and proximity to family members is key "to rehabilitation, reentry, and reducing the chances of recidivism."

Brewer asked Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration to "thoroughly" investigate the possibility of moving the new women's jail to the Harlem facility and offered the support of her office. A spokeswoman for the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice said that the Lincoln Correctional Facility was not considered a viable site because it's not city-owned property.

The city's borough-based jails plan targeted the Manhattan Detention Center complex on White Street as the site for Manhattan's new jail facility. Brewer said that "land constraints" prevent the site from being considered for the new women's jail.

Brewer's overall ruling approves the city's plan, but offers a number of recommended changes in addition to the suggestion for Lincoln Correctional Facility.

Read more about Brewer's recommendations for the White Street facility here.

De Blasio last year announced plans to build four new jails— one in every borough except Staten Island. The new jails would replace detention facilities on Rikers Island, de Blasio says, and reduce the city's jail population from 9,400 to 5,000 by the year 2026.

Lincoln and the Livingston Correctional Facility in Western New York will close this year due to a drop in crime and a reduction in the state's prison population, state officials announced earlier this year. The Harlem facility is expected to shut down this year.

The state has not announced its plans for the Harlem site, but the facility's closure has drawn the attention of real estate speculators. Located directly across from Central Park on West 110th Street, the property may demand top dollars from developers looking for a building site in a quickly-developing area of Harlem.