About

No Brooklyn Jail is a campaign developed from grassroots opposition against the Borough Based Jails Plan (BBJs) since protests in 2019. We are compromised of native New Yorkers, students, criminalized people, architects, and other working-class New Yorkers who reject the proposal to replace Rikers with modernized intraborough skyscraper facilities, and instead demand that New York City can shut down Rikers by reducing its reliance on criminalization and detention instead.

Objective

This campaign advocates for divestment from the construction of the BBJs alongside the speediest possible decarceration and closure of Rikers. Instead, we call on the city to use the sites for adaptive reuse, housing, and/or public good. In addition, we aim to educate the public about the true nature of these dilapidated and torturous pretrial jails like Rikers, which come out of a bloated police and correctional budget and are supported by political doctrines that prioritize law and order over community care and social wellbeing.

FAQ

Won’t these jails be different than Rikers?

No “redesigned” jail has ever escaped its fate as a jail. Rikers itself was a “reform” of Blackwell’s Island, and at their core, these facilities are still designed to cage and coerce people. They will be managed by the same administration that has fostered the abuse we see at Rikers. Reformed jails (as well as prisons and detention centers) across the country continue to be sites of state-sponsored torture, where people languish waiting for their court dates, medical care, and are warehoused by illegitimate punishment systems. We do not deny that for some, a cage with windows is preferable to a grim and dark locker. However, building new jails is a weak stopgap for a larger, systemic, problem that can only truly be solved by decarceration.

Will these jails at least help close Rikers and reduce the incarcerated population in NYC?

The Brooklyn jail will not be completed until 2029 at the earliest, meaning that the city has already broken its promises to close Rikers by 2027. The other jails won’t be completed until 2032. Historically, every time NYC has built a “better” jail, the incarcerated population has simply continued to increase. Furthermore, the number of people imprisoned inside Rikers are back to highs not seen since 2019. If the purpose of the new jails is decarceration and relief for the cities criminalized communities, why do the numbers of people arrested and detained continue to soar? The new jails will hold 4,160 jail beds (with 1,040 beds in Brooklyn), and rest assured that if they build it, they will fill it.

Isn’t reducing the incarcerated population in NYC unrealistic?

New York City famously cut its imprisoned population by almost half in the 2000s, and during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, successfully reduced numbers inside city jails to 3,928 in 2020 with little impact on arrest rates. In addition, the judicial system has called for the release of pre-trial detainees in the past, the clearest example being 1983 under District Judge Morris Lasker. This demonstrates that there are a number of policies New York City's representatives and the DOC could pursue in order to continue releasing people. Maintaining the decarceral trend should be a priority for the city's electeds, combined with emptying Rikers and creating no new correctional capacity.

Who will manage the new jail?

The same NYC Department of Corrections that manages Rikers will manage all the new jails. The NYC DOC is an ungovernable institution that, in response to widespread scrutiny of their operations, has only become more brutal. In addition, the borough based jails plan has effectively given MOCJ, DDC, and the cohort of contractors and architecture firms involved in new jails construction carte-blanche to construct these jails at whatever cost and on whatever timeline, with no real regard for those inside Rikers, nor any accountability for missed deadlines. There is no reason to expect that any new facilities under DOC management will be safer, just because they are 'nicer' places to work inside.