First Rikers Island Cell Block To Be Closed By Summer, City Says

NEW YORK, NY – The first jail complex on Rikers Island will be closed by this summer in the first concrete step towards Mayor Bill de Blasio's promise to completely shut the beleaguered facility, the city announced Tuesday.

The George Motchan Detention Center, which currently houses 600 male inmates, will be closed. It's one of nine detention centers on the island.

The city said the move will not result in a reduction in Department of Corrections staff.

It's the first closure since de Blasio announced in March that Rikers would be gradually shut and replaced with a new, yet to be created jail system. Since then, the population of Rikers has been cut to below 9,000, which the city said was a 20 percent reduction from when de Blasio took office four years ago.

De Blasio said he aims to get the Rikers population down to 5,000 before closing it. He said in March he intends for it to be completely shut within a decade.

The city recently asked for proposals for sites that can be developed into replacements for the Rikers Island facilities. The city said policies were also in place to find alternatives to prison for low-level offenses and to create an replacement to the bail system which will allow more people to remain outside jail while awaiting trial.

"Today's announcement of the closure of one of the jails on Rikers represents an important step in the right direction," said Jonathan Lippman, head of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform.

The sooner new, smaller, state-of-the-art jail facilities are designed and sited in the boroughs, the sooner all of the horrific jails on Rikers Island will be a thing of the past."

Overcrowding and problems at Rikers have been highlighted by activists for many months. They're blamed for the death of Kalief Browder, a Bronx teenager who was wrongly imprisoned in the jail for three years without a trial.

Browder was accused of stealing a backpack and maintained his innocence until he was released from jail. Browder spent about two of those three years in solitary confinement.

He killed himself about two years after he was released.

Lead image via Shutterstock.