Queens City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley is expected to push Wednesday for city officials to follow Department of Justice recommendations and move 16- and 17-year-old inmates off Rikers Island.
The recommendation was one of many to come out of a scathing report released by federal investigators in August. It detailed the brutal treatment of adolescents and will be the focus of tomorrow's hearing, which will be chaired by Crowley.
Crowley said in an interview with WNYC that relocating the teens to a new facility is the only way to break the entrenched violence at Rikers Island. She is the chair of the council committee overseeing jails.
The councilwoman said her first choice would be to move the adolescents to a juvenile facility, many of which are half empty. But teenagers 16 and over are treated as adults in criminal court and are held in adult facilities; changing that would require a new state law. A state task force has been set up to consider the change, but until then, Crowley said teens should be moved to the now-vacant Queens House of Detention.
The councilwoman said the jail, which is near Queens Criminal Court, is mostly used as a movie set these days. She visited the site with Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte a few weeks ago, she said; Ponte is expected to testify at Wednesday's hearing. The jail can hold 500 inmates, about double the size of the Rikers adolescent population.
"I believe that we could put in in the capital dollars necessary to renovate that jail and make it more of a jail conducive to 16- and 17-year-olds," Crowley said. She added that she didn't know how much that cost would be.
In the past, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said changing how teens get treated on Rikers is more of a priority than relocating them.
On Monday, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito made an unannounced visit to the adolescent unit on Rikers Island, where she toured the school, mess hall and solitary confinement unit. When asked whether she would support relocating teens to the Queens House of Detention, a spokesman said the Speaker hasn't taken a position yet.