De Blasio, City Council Reach Deal To Replace Rikers Island With ‘Community-Based Facilities’

Statement from Alphonso David, Counsel to Governor Andrew Cuomo

"The crisis at Rikers Island Jail Complex is intolerable, and the City's administration and City Council should never have agreed to a 10-year plan. The Governor has repeatedly said 10 years is too long because 'justice delayed is justice denied.' And with thousands of people impacted and many lives at risk, the City must go back to the drawing board and develop the political will to treat this as a priority. Council Speaker Corey Johnson today suggested that the State provide design-build authority to accelerate construction. This is the first positive step to actually expediting resolution and the Governor will support it. However, no one believes 10 years is a good faith timeline. Building new jails is not that complicated if the City actually wanted to get it done. Obviously, comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system is critical, and the Governor has made it a priority every year and has accomplished much reform. But independent of the passage of additional criminal justice reforms, the issue before the City is a different one: it still needs to close Rikers and build new, acceptable facilities quickly."

Source: Press Office, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo