Tens of thousands of criminals have been imprisoned in New York’s notorious Rikers Island prison since the 1930s – now the US east coast metropolis wants to close the prison. The city council on Thursday approved the plan to replace Prison Island and three other prisons with four smaller facilities in the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx by 2026. One day, Rikers Island should also be open to the public.
–
Because of the outdated infrastructure and frequent acts of violence, human rights activists have been calling for the closure of the prison complex, in which prominent prisoners such as the rapper Tupac Shakur and politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn were held, for years. Again and again, the detention center fell into disrepute due to the mistreatment of inmates – blacks and Hispanic Americans in particular are said to have been affected.
–
In the 1990s up to 20,000 people were imprisoned on the prison island, currently there are still around 7,000. “The age of mass imprisonment is over,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. According to city plans, New York will only need space for 3,300 prisoners in 2026 due to judicial reforms and falling crime rates. The restructuring costs are estimated at the equivalent of almost eight billion euros.
–
The city government promises better prison conditions in the new facilities, and they should also be safer and easier to reach for the relatives of the prisoners.
The decision also provoked opposition. Criticism was voiced, among other things, of de Blasio’s plan to replace Rikers Island with detention centers close to the center with significantly fewer cells. Other opponents of the plan called for the money granted to be used to combat the causes of crime.
–
