Kew Gardens Jail Opponents Will March In Protest Of City's Plan

KEW GARDENS, QUEENS — Queens residents and community organizations are gearing up for another protest of the city's plan to build a new jail in Kew Gardens.

Local activists will rally outside Queens Borough Hall on June 23 to call on the mayor's office to cancel plans to build a roughly 1,400-bed jail in Kew Gardens in a years-long effort to close the notorious detention facilities on Rikers Island.

The rally Sunday follows a similar event in April that drew several hundred protesters.

"These proposed mega-jails do not belong in residential areas, which will bear the environmental and economic burden for decades to come," Queens Residents United's Aida Vernon said in a statement.

"It’s time to stop this reckless, costly and unsustainable plan to build borough-based mega-jails and focus on fair, effective and sensible solutions for reforming and humanizing NYC’s criminal justice system," Vernon added.

A recent study of five jails found that they had no discernible effect on crime rates or property values in their surrounding neighborhoods, contrary to some activists' claims that the Kew Gardens jail would negatively affect the area.

But the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, which released the study, crafted the blueprint for closing jails on Rikers Island — a plan sometimes referred to as the Lippman report, after the judge who chairs the commission.

The rally follows recent votes by community boards in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn to reject the city's jail proposals for their boroughs.

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, who will soon cast her own vote on the Kew Gardens proposal, has previously indicated that she plans to oppose the jail.

The rally will take place, rain or shine, in front of Queens Borough Hall in Kew Gardens from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 23.

For more information, contact: info@queensresidentsunited.com.