OPINION: An unanswered question in planning for new Brooklyn jail
Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced preliminary plans for opening “community-based” jails that would take the place of the facilities on Rikers Island, if and when Rikers is closed. The plans include upgrading the current Department of Correction jails in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, and building a completely new jail in the Bronx. No facility will be built in Staten Island.
Key to the mayor’s proposal is combining all of this construction and renovation in one Uniform Land Use Review Procedure application. The mayor said the application could be submitted for certification as early as the end of this year and the design process could begin as early as 2019.
The Brooklyn Detention Complex on Atlantic Avenue currently has a capacity of approximately 800 prisoners. The new jail will need to house 700 more prisoners on average, including, for the first time, female inmates. Currently all female inmates are held at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island. The complex will also need space for safety, security, health and mental health care.
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.