Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams referred to as Rikers Island a “loss of life camp” Monday whilst she admitted the troubled jail advanced can’t shutter by 2027 — however nonetheless refused to say whether or not she’d amend the regulation mandating its closure.
“The pandemic precipitated the slowdown of the closure of Rikers, clearly,” Adams lastly acknowledged throughout a discussion board on public security at Hunter Faculty’s Public Coverage Institute, with a few of her opponents within the upcoming mayoral election.
“I don’t suppose there’s anybody within the room who will debate the truth that it is going to be delayed so far as the closure. That’s not the query. I feel that may be a actuality,” she mentioned.
Adams added: “Riker’s island is a loss of life camp — I feel we are able to at the least conform to that.”
The notorious lockup — which has for years confronted criticisms over unsafe circumstances and overcrowding — is legally mandated to shut by 2027, primarily based on a controversial plan that may construct 4 borough-based jail
Mayor Eric Adams has argued that the deadline can’t be met, and requested the Metropolis Council to amend the regulation it handed in 2019 setting the closure timeline.
However regardless of calls from the mayor, Adrienne Adams, who took over as council speaker in 2022, hasn’t taken any concrete steps to enact a brand new plan to tweak the present deadline.
“Closing Riker’s is the regulation,” Adams, no relation to the mayor, mentioned throughout Monday’s discussion board when unbiased mayoral candidate Jim Walden steered an alternative choice to whole closure.
Rikers has already seen 5 inmates thus far this yr, however some critics referred to as out the speaker for her characterization of the jail advanced as a “loss of life camp.”
“To name it a loss of life camp is a gross political exaggeration,” a corrections officer, who requested to stay nameless, instructed The Publish.
“That’s an insult to survivors of actual loss of life camps, and that assertion offends an entire group,” one other correction officer griped.
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