Key Question in Closing Rikers: How to Design Replacement Jails

The first part of the plan is clear: the jails on Rikers Island will be closed. Less clear is the second part: what, exactly, the replacement jails will look like.

Among others, one task force convened by the de Blasio administration is working on the issue, while a private architecture firm, Perkins Eastman, has been hired in a $7.5 million contract to take the task force’s input into consideration as it makes design and construction plans.

“This is an opportunity for us, not to recreate what we have, but to really begin to think outside the box in terms of what we want,” said Stanley Richards, a member of the independent commission and the executive vice president of The Fortune Society, an organization that provides reentry services for formerly incarcerated people.