A plan to move more than 360 detainees with serious mental and physical health conditions off Rikers Island and into state-of-the-art therapeutic beds in borough-based hospitals has been delayed by years with no clear date of completion in sight, city jails officials told the New York City Council on Wednesday.
In a joint oversight hearing held by the Council’s criminal justice and hospitals committees on Wednesday, members grilled officials from the Department of Correction and Correctional Health Services about what is holding up three new therapeutic facilities at Bellevue, Woodhull and North Central Bronx hospitals.
The 104-bed facility at Bellevue was scheduled to open in December 2022.
“If it had come to pass, 104 people would already be off Rikers Island and be in therapeutic housing,” Councilmember Carlina Rivera told department officials. “What happened?”
Jails officials said the unit was delayed after city leadership changed in 2022, and that new project leaders put in charge flagged a number of “security issues” in the design.
Jails officials said they could not give a firm timeline on when the Outposted Therapeutic Housing Unit facilities would be opened and could not say when they could get the information to the Council.
Therapeutic beds promised in 2019
In 2019, the administration of then-Mayor Bill De Blasio announced plans for the Department of Correction to develop secure, guarded units with hundreds of therapeutic beds inside city hospitals to care for detainees with the highest medical needs. The people who were meant to be served included those with serious mental health issues, substance abuse issues and physical health issues, such as detainees with cancer who need chemotherapy.
The goal was to give detainees better access to treatments they could only access in a hospital environment – such as chemotherapy. It would also remove seriously unwell detainees from the notoriously dangerous Rikers Island facility.
“The services they may…
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