The Brooklyn House of Detention, located on Atlantic Avenue between Boerum Place and Smith Street in Downtown Brooklyn, is being renovated to be a part of the City’s plan to replace Rikers Island. Recently, for the second time, plans changed to increase the number of beds at the renovated facility.
Screenshot via Google Earth
The City is still at least four years away from closing Rikers Island and replacing it with four smaller jails, but those jails are already going to be larger than was planned.
Brooklyn’s borough-based jail facility is set to increase by an unexpected 154 beds, a plan disclosed last week by the city that has drawn a flurry of criticism from criminal justice advocates. The facility is one of four designed to replace the controversial Rikers Island jail by 2027.
During a neighborhood advisory meeting on Wednesday, the city’s Department of Correction, Department of Design and Construction, and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice announced the revised blueprint for the borough-based jail facility. Initially intended to accommodate 886 detainees, the revised plans now include provisions for 1,040 beds.
However, the city’s decision to accommodate this influx by eliminating “therapeutic beds” for detainees with mental illnesses or substance abuse issues has sparked controversy. With nearly half the population of Rikers Island diagnosed with mental health conditions, the city’s decision to forego these critical spaces has drawn significant criticism.
Further changes to the plan include slashing the proposed parking spaces for the facility by half, from the initial 200 spots to the revised 100 spots.
These modifications to the jail’s blueprint underscore the city’s straying from the initial plan for the borough-based jails to hold a maximum of 3,300 detainees. With over 6,000 New Yorkers currently detained on Rikers Island per day, the city’s criminal justice system appears strained beyond its anticipated capacity.
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