With the city far behind its legal deadline to close Rikers Island by 2027, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams condemned the Adams administration for their lack of progress toward the goal and efforts which undermine it. This comes after the administration agreed last week to allow ICE onto Rikers in violation of the law, and the City Council moved to sue as a result.
“This has been an open secret, as the Adams administration has sat on its hands for most of its tenure, allowing the dysfunction in the jails to spiral and the death toll to rise,” said Public Advocate Williams on the delayed closure. “Though the jail population reached historic lows during the pandemic, and despite the planned borough-based jails’ capacity of only about 4,500 people, this administration has facilitated a consistent rise in the number of people incarcerated on Rikers Island every year since Adams took office. This lack of diligence and urgency has compromised the dignity and safety of people on both sides of the bars, and has cost at least 38 people their lives.
“The blame for the city’s imminent failure to meet its deadline cannot be placed solely on Mayor Adams,” he continued. “But that is no exoneration from the direct and clear failure to put any systems at all in place to move toward this deadline.” He cited the administration’s anti-transparency policies and refusal to implement Local Law 42, saying “Efforts to obfuscate the abuse and dysfunction in the jails and to shirk transparency and accountability—including through dubiously legal executive orders to get around city laws the mayor doesn’t like—have exacerbated the suffering on Rikers Island.”
Public Advocate Williams further highlighted the enormous cost – $400,000 a year – of keeping a single person on Rikers, and raised his resolution as a cost-effective way of helping to prevent recidivism and promote public safety. Helping people meet immediate costs post-incarceration, he said, “is a relatively inexpensive, tangible way that we can ease the transition from incarceration back into the community.”
Finally, the Public Advocate emphasized the need for accountability and change, asking “How we can avoid another mayoral tenure—be it under Eric Adams, hopefully not, or someone else—of inaction and negligence.”
Read the Public Advocate’s full comments below.
STATEMENT OF PUBLIC ADVOCATE JUMAANE D. WILLIAMS TO THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE APRIL 16, 2025
Good afternoon,
My name is Jumaane D. Williams and I am the Public Advocate for the City of New York. I thank Chair Nurse and the members of the Committee on Criminal Justice for holding this hearing and giving me an opportunity to make a statement.
Despite the urgent humanitarian crisis on Rikers Island, it is impossible for the city to meet its legally mandated deadline to close Rikers by the year 2027. This has been an open secret as the Adams administration has sat on its hands for most of its tenure, allowing the dysfunction in the jails to spiral and the death toll to rise; however, the Independent Rikers Commission recently confirmed what we already knew in a report released last month. Though the jail population reached historic lows during the pandemic, and despite the planned borough-based jails’ capacity of only about 4,500 people, this administration has facilitated a consistent rise in the number of people incarcerated on Rikers Island every year since Adams took office. This lack of diligence and urgency has compromised the dignity and safety of people on both sides of the bars, and has cost at least 38 people their lives.
The blame for the city’s imminent failure, we have to be honest, to meet its deadline cannot be placed solely on Mayor Adams but that is no exoneration from the direct and clear failure to put any systems at all in place to move toward this deadline. The pandemic contributed to a backlog of court cases, and a wildcat strike at upstate prisons has forced the city to hold people in jail past the dates they were supposed to be transferred to state prisons. At the same time, there is a clear lack of urgency from this administration to decrease the population and ensure the city is hitting the benchmarks it needs to close the jails on time. Efforts to obfuscate the abuse and dysfunction in the jails and to shirk transparency and accountability—including through dubiously legal executive orders to get around city laws the mayor doesn’t like—have exacerbated the suffering on Rikers Island. It is clear that there must not only be the physical construction of new jails, but a radical culture shift to prevent the recreation of Rikers Island in each borough—an example the mayor has thus far failed to set.
While it is impossible to put a numerical value on a person’s life, the crisis at Rikers has cost the city in many other ways as well: holding one person in jail costs $400,000 annually. Closing Rikers Island and transitioning to the proposed borough-based jails will save the city $2.2 billion annually in operating and overtime costs. The closure of Rikers Island must not only be an investment in infrastructure—the new jails themselves—but in people and in communities. Rikers Island is currently the largest provider of mental health services in the city, I believe in North America, and this is neither appropriate nor practical. The city and state can decrease the number of people in jails by investing in and expanding mental health treatment and services—both inpatient and in the community. While the mayor likes to blame changes to the state’s bail laws for recidivism, the city is divesting from programs and services that help people successfully reintegrate back into civilian life – and recidivism has been a problem long before the state's bail laws were changed.
In addition to this report from the Commission, several pieces of legislation are also being heard today. Resolution 371, sponsored by Councilmembers Hudson, Nurse, and myself calls on the State Legislature to pass S6643A/A9115, which would provide eligible incarcerated individuals with a monthly stipend upon release from a state correctional facility. A person released from incarceration is immediately faced with expenses, including housing, clothing, food, and acquiring identification documents. This is a relatively inexpensive, tangible way that we can ease the transition from incarceration back into the community. The Independent Rikers Commission report makes numerous clear and direct recommendations to lead the city back to the path to close Rikers Island as soon as possible, though after 2027. I want to focus here on accountability for the administration that has failed to meet its legal mandate and how we can avoid another mayoral tenure—be it under Eric Adams, hopefully not, or someone else—of inaction and negligence. We owe the families of those whose lives have been taken by Rikers Island that much. Thank you.
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