NYC mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo wants to save Rikers Island, New York’s notorious jail complex

New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo says he wants to save Rikers Island, the notorious jail complex that has become a symbol of dysfunction in the city’s criminal justice system.

The city is legally required to shutter its jails on Rikers and replace them with four smaller, more modern jails by 2027 under a plan approved by the City Council six years ago. Officials at the time wanted Rikers gone for several reasons: It is crumbling, costly, plagued by violence and far from the courthouses where its inmates need to be transported regularly.

But the replacement project has stalled, swelled in cost and faces local opposition. Only one of the four new jails, in Brooklyn, is under construction.

Cuomo, the former New York governor who is running for mayor as an independent, said Wednesday that he would scrap the plan to replace Rikers and would rebuild it instead.

“We can and must do both things at once: Close Rikers as we know it, and rebuild it the right way,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo said he would rebuild the jails at Rikers one at a time so operations can continue. He said the land where the replacement neighborhood jails were going to be built would be turned into affordable housing or mixed-use developments.

“The deadlines have already slipped years past, costs have doubled, and neighborhoods are being forced to shoulder the burden of government at its worst. Now is the time to admit the mistake before we dig any deeper,” he said.

The Democratic Party’s mayoral nominee, Zohran Mamdani, told reporters Wednesday that abandoning the plan to close Rikers would be a bad idea.

“Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to take that which is broken, that which is morally bankrupt, that which is a stain on our city and to keep it open, it’s a betrayal not only of the law as it stands today, but also of what New Yorkers actually want,” Mamdani said.

Built on an island in the East River, Rikers Island has been featured on television’s “Law & Order” and other crime shows and has housed high-profile inmates, including Harvey Weinstein. The facility had come under intense scrutiny over inmate deaths and allegations of neglect, leading to heavy federal oversight.

The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, has also questioned whether closing Rikers is the solution to its problems and urged the City Council to find an alternative as it became increasingly likely that the city would miss its deadline. Adams is not running for reelection.

The Republican nominee for mayor, Curtis Sliwa, has said he would not allow Rikers Island to close and has called for its jails to be renovated.

In a statement Wednesday, Jonathan Lippman, a former chief state judge who chairs a commission that studies Rikers, said the jail “must be closed as soon as humanly possible.” He added that more than 70 people held at Rikers have died since the start of 2020 and that the city spends more than $2.8 billion annually to operate the facility.

“Rebuilding on Rikers is highly problematic, fiscally flawed, and at variance with the law and the present advanced state of contracting, moneys invested, and preparatory work already undertaken to build four new more humane local jails in the city,” Lippman said.