Elected officials, formerly incarcerated activists and family members of those currently incarcerated joined together at City Hall Park to launch the countdown towards the hopeful closure of Rikers Island. Organizations such as the the Freedom Agenda, Fortune Society, Women’s Community Justice Association, VOCAL-NY, Osborne Association, Bronx Connect, El Puente, among others, joined City Council members Jennifer Gutierrez, Alexa Aviles, Shahana Hanif, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, City Comptroller Brad Lander and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to hold Mayor Eric Adams’ administration accountable for closing Rikers Island.

In 2019, the City Council passed legislation that would mandate the closure of Rikers Island and replace it with four borough-based jails that can hold 3,300 people each. However, Mayor Eric Adams, while vowing to comply with the law, has pushed back and called for a better plan, sparking frustration among advocates and elected officials. Adams also has said that the current approach “was a flawed plan from the beginning.”

The population in city jails is now over 6,000, which exceeds the capacity of the proposed borough-based jails. Additionally, 85% of the population are in pre-trial confinement.

“What he is doing is increasing the population of Rikers Island the way Guiliani did, increasing stop and frisk the way Guiliani did, increasing the budget of the police department the way Guiliani did,” Reynoso said at the City Hall Park event.

“He talks about it being impractical to close Rikers Island, but we saw legislation passed to stop,  “stop and frisk,” and we saw crime go down, we saw the population in Rikers Island go down, and we saw this city be the safest big city in the history of this country. So we’re not talking about something that could be. We’re talking about something that was. It actually existed.”

Currently, 41% of incarcerated people in state and federal prisons have a history of mental illness. Elected officials and activists have long advocated for mental health services and rehabilitation services to decarcerate the population.