Brooklyn Eagle
The plan to close Rikers Island has always relied on two contingencies: shrinking the current population of inmates in the city and spreading those inmates across the boroughs in five new and smaller jails.
In Brooklyn, that means the House of Detention located on Atlantic Avenue, which currently holds about 800 inmates, needs to be renovated and expanded. The plan proposed by the city calls for the current facility to be replaced by a 1.4 million square-foot building that would be 430 feet high and could fit approximately 1,500 inmates.
The former chief judge of New York state, Hon. Jonathan Lippman, who led the commission that initially called for the city to shut down Rikers Island, said that plan is too much and that the city needs to do a better job of listening to local communities.
“One of our criticisms of the city is that the jails are out of scale,” Lippman said while speaking at New York Law School on Friday during the CityLaw Breakfast Series. “They need to be smaller and can’t be out of character.”
“One of the reasons they are so big is that the city is designing them with all different things into the building,” Lippman said. “They want to serve the community, but I think it’s overkill. If you look at the square footage at the jails proposed by the city, compared to other cities that have done it right, they’re way, way, way greater. The scale has to be down.”
Lippman added that part of the problem is that the city has not gotten much input from the communities themselves and said that he’s complained about the issue to the powers that be.
“We have been in the city’s face about not engaging with the community,” Lippman said. “You need to go to those hearings. Communication is key to making this happen the way it should.”
So far, the few public hearings that have taken place have often been overtaken by advocates who do not want Rikers Island replaced with five community jails. Lippman said that he is worried that such advocates could derail the project entirely, adding that standing opposed to community jails is akin to being for Rikers Island.
The proper analytical response to Mr. Lippman's current epiphanies about and the ramifications of his initial plan is "duh"
5 comments:
Why dont we just get rid of all the jails completely. If you make all crime legal then you dont need any jails, and no one will be incarcerated. It would be a democrat's utopia.
Queens DA and former judge Richard Brown argues in favor of Rikers, he gives his reasons in a recent NY Daily News op-ed, he has been on the front lines of criminal justice almost 50 years, his views should carry as much weight at Judge Lippman. He says Rikers can be made better, the cost of closing Rikers and the cost of putting up new or improved jails in 4 (or 5) boroughs will be astronomical and jail violence will not go down overall.
Follow the money Lippman!
What's funny is that Lippmann doesn't like the proposal because it doesn't go far enough. He sounds all over the map and has apparently no conception or concern for the costs. If it were a teenager spouting things like this it would be understandable. For a judge whose held people's freedom and justice in his hands? Disturbing, to say the lwast. Maybe this is only a recent doddering senility that has overtaken his mind in retirement.
Judges are not God! Are they? Odds are the majority of them are not of sound mind and many on the take. That's just the plain old truth. Term limits on these public officials would help bring it under control. Easier routes to impeachment would also work. I'll hold my breath while our legislators do anything about the crimes of the bench.
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