This is an open letter from urban planning and policy practitioners, professors, and researchers in support of the No New Jails NYC campaign. If you would like to sign on to this letter, please fill out the form below.
September 23, 2019
As people working and teaching in urban planning and policy, we call on all members of the New York City Council to vote no on the “Borough-Based Jail System” land use application and to take action for the immediate closure of the jails on Rikers Island. To build healthy and safe communities, we must divest from policing and incarceration and invest in the community resources we strive to build in our work every day. We cannot end mass incarceration by creating new jails. Approval of this land use action cannot guarantee the closure of the Rikers Island jails nor address the human rights abuses that occur within jails, regardless of design or location. The City can and must close the jails on Rikers Island without building new jails by embarking on a community-based abolitionist planning process, like No New Jails’ robust abolition plan, and investing in decarceral and abolitionist strategies, including existing city programs and policies.
Foremost, we are opposed to the caging of human beings in jails, a practice widely evidenced to enact violence against Black and Brown people regardless of location or design. New York City has brutally locked away generations through policing driven by debunked Broken Windows theory, the drug war, and gang databases and emerging “predictive policing.” Incarceration further entrenches communities of color in poverty, destabilizes families, inflicts trauma on those incarcerated and their loved ones, and undermines employment prospects for people of color. The City’s proposal for “humane design” in new jails is part of a long reformist tradition that has promised rehabilitative jails and consistently failed, including in the case of Rikers jails complex. This sort of design determinism is often a shiny veneer for racist, oppressive policy, from “slum clearance” that displaced Black and Brown New Yorkers for Urban Renewal megaprojects to defensible space theory-informed public housing design that fenced off green spaces from residents. Design cannot solve problems of oppression; design cannot be humane in an inhumane system. Locating new jails closer to courthouses and public transportation does not counter the physical and psychological violence done to people living in hyper-policed neighborhoods, people in jail, and people with family members in jail -- it perpetuates it.
We as urban planners have a responsibility to think about the long-term consequences of present actions, seek social and racial justice, and urge the alteration, reversal, or abolition of policies, institutions, and decisions that oppose such needs, as stated in the AICP Code of Ethics. We cannot continue to sign on to plans that harm the public we serve. Sound, ethical planning calls for closing Rikers without building new jails because jails are tools of racist violence.
Second, the City can close the jails on Rikers Island without building new jails. The City did not provide adequate analysis of feasible, humane, and more effective policy alternatives for achieving its goals of reducing the jail population and increasing safety in its planning process and environmental review of the Borough-Based Jails development plan. The City has both disregarded the true impact of proposed policy alternatives to reduce the number of human beings in city jails each day below 4,000 and failed to properly look at other decarceral and abolitionist alternatives.
- Existing bail and pretrial detention reforms and diversion programs are reducing the jail population faster than the city projected. We must further advance and expand decarceral reforms (not programs that expand the carceral state through surveillance technology and supervised release). City strategies including reforming the bail system, diversion programs, and speeding up case processing times are underway; the City has already reached its five-year goal of reducing the daily jail population to approximately 7,000 people in two years. State bail reforms going into effect in January 2020 will significantly reduce the number of people entering jail for misdemeanor and “non-violent” charges, reducing the daily jail population by up to 3,000 people (bringing the jail population to approximately 4,000 people per day). There is also opportunity to expand these decarceral strategies. For instance, if the recent bail reforms were expanded to eliminate pre-trial detention to the furthest extent of existing law, the number of people in jail each day would be reduced to approximately 2,700 people. By ending incarceration for misdemeanor convictions and enacting parole reforms to reduce the number of people on technical parole violations, the number of people held in city jails could be reduced even further.
Ultimately, the city’s land use application was based on flawed projections, even by its own findings, of the impact of existing alternatives for meeting its stated goal of safely reducing the number of people in jail. These impacts, taken together with the unexplored feasible alternatives and a thirty-year trend of increasing public safety, undermine the city’s justification for its plan to build jails with capacity to cage 4,000 people each day (likely 20,000 people each year) for years to come.
- To actually decarcerate, and to build safe communities, the city must reduce policing and punishment. The city must reduce policing and arrests and expand well-tested models of violence interruption and transformative justice practices. City Councilmembers whose most urgent concern is closing Rikers will find the most immediate progress and impact in these strategies, as opposed to building new jails.
- The city must invest in housing and community resources and address systemic causes of poverty. The majority of Black and Brown neighborhoods overrepresented in police stops, arrests, and incarceration have never received sufficient public investment in the resources necessary for building safe communities. If the city seeks to reach its stated goals of restabilizing familial and community connections, improving mental health, integrating formerly incarcerated people returning home, and reducing the number of people incarcerated, the city must invest in and remove systemic barriers to quality jobs and higher wages, education, healthcare, free public transportation (a feasible policy, with precedent in student Metrocards and free roads and parking), a just food system, and housing.
Specifically, the city must prioritize investments in low-income housing and anti-racist housing policies. Over 60,000 people sleep in shelters every night, and the New York City Housing Authority has a staggering capital budget need of $31.8 billion over the next five years, with $45.2 billion over the next 20 years, to repair and rehabilitate this critical source of affordable housing, among others. Housing security is essential for every person’s safety and ability to thrive and is key in reducing incarceration rates. The city needs to adopt a Housing First approach for those who have been incarcerated that experience homelessness and struggle with mental health issues. The city’s longstanding investments in supportive housing, including in models for people caught between jails, hospitals, and shelters, are shown to improve health outcomes and reduce recidivism. The city must make the overdue investment in NYCHA and remove barriers for people who have been targeted by police, including ending NYCHA’s permanent exclusion policy and enacting policy that builds on NYCHA’s successful family reentry pilot. Echoing priorities identified in the city’s Where We Live NYC process, the city’s housing strategy must address generations of concentrated poverty, discrimination, and systemic barriers in the housing market and housing programs. Strategies include improving fair housing enforcement, investing city dollars in infrastructure and services in communities of color entirely independent from any neighborhood rezoning proposal, and preserving and creating quality housing targeted to people without homes and households making less than $30,000 annually.
Finally, the proposed land use action to create four new jails, which was developed without sufficient transparency or meaningful public involvement, is not a plan to close the Rikers jails.
- The City claims that the plan to close Rikers Island and build borough-based jails was developed through “transparent partnership” and “comprehensive engagement strategy that [goes] beyond what is required as part of public review,” but this was not a community-based planning process nor one with meaningful public involvement. The Implementation Task Force and the Neighborhood Advisory Councils (NAC) convened around the jails development plan had closed-door meetings with members appointed by the Mayor's Office and the districts' City Council members. The Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) process for the Borough-Based Jails development application also presented stumbling blocks to public involvement, including: Brooklyn Community Board 2 and Brooklyn Borough President recommendations submitted after the review deadlines; the protracted and ultimately negative determination by the Law Department regarding whether the Bronx Borough President’s negative recommendation on the Bronx site selection would trigger the requirement for supermajority approval by the CPC (City Charter Section 197-c); a poorly-worded statement closing the July 10th CPC hearing from CPC Chair Lago regarding public comment deadlines for the EIS and ULURP application; CPC Commissioner David Burney’s potential conflict of interest on the vote given his other role as a member of the Justice Implementation Taskforce; and long waits and conflicting information for access to the Council chambers and overflow rooms at the September 5th City Council hearing.
- The ULURP application to allow the construction of four new jails does not include any mechanisms to ensure the closure of Rikers. Calling the jails development ULURP review a plan to close Rikers is a distortion of the land use process. Voting ‘yes’ only permits the city to build new jails, and offers no accountability or oversight for the agencies implementing the proposed plan. Voting ‘no’ is a step in advancing the city’s much-needed conversations on closing city jails and addressing the systemic abuses jails inflict. Voting ‘no,’ paired with a commitment to advancing abolitionist alternatives, means saying no to normalizing jails and prisons as our response to every societal issue and saying no to furthering systemic abuses against communities of color.
The city needs a community-based planning process to advance effective and humane strategies to close the jails on Rikers Island and build safe communities without jails—the very required seismic shift in culture and expectations by New Yorkers and the justice system acknowledged by the city. The city should look to the No New Jails NYC plan and Movement for Black Lives policy platform as strong models for community-based abolitionist planning led by people most directly impacted by policing and incarceration.
The creation of new jails is a terrible misuse and waste of scarce public land and dollars; New York City must divest from the carceral state and invest in communities. Community investment in the strategies outlined above will reduce the number of people in jail. As stated in the Final Environmental Impact Statement, this project would be an irreversible and irretrievable commitment, which means in the near term the much-needed land cannot be used for the very community-investments needed to reduce the number of people in jail. With this plan the city has failed to fully weigh the impacts of this irreversible and detrimental land-use commitment, adequately identify alternatives to jail, examine existing city tools to reduce the number of people in jails, and provide New Yorkers with the opportunity to have conversations on closing Rikers Island and building a city without jails.
Signed,
1. Sylvia Morse
2. Sabrina Bazile, Msc, City & Regional Planning
3. Aly Hassell, Hunter College Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy
4. Samuel Stein
5. Alan Minor
6. Lena P Afridi
7. James Hull
8. Tom Angotti, Hunter College, City University of New York
9. Hafizah Omar, Hunter College
10. Alyssa Smaldino
11. Natsumi Yokura
12. Jen Chantrtanapichate
13. Nadia Owusu, Living Cities
14. Yvette Chen
15. Nelson Kugle, Automotive
16. Andrew Schustek
17. Carlos Pazmino, MURP
18. Robin D. McGinty
19. Ujju Aggarwal, The New School
20. Rian Rooney
21. Chris Feinman, PennDesign
22. Josefina Peralta, Hunter College
23. Lucy Block, Master of Urban Planning, Hunter College
24. Genea Foster
25. Thomas Abbot
26. Do Lee, Queens College, City University of New York
27. Michael Perles
28. Arielle Lawson, Hunter College, City University of New York
29. christopher herring, UC Berkeley
30. Cea Weaver
31. Rosalie Singerman Ray, Columbia University
32. Erica Saunders
33. Peter Harrison, Candidate for N.Y.-12
34. Stephen Cassidy Jones, Doctoral Candidate, The Graduate Center, CUNY
35. Evan Casper-Futterman, PhD
36. Katherine Mella, MCP
37. Deshonay Dozier, CSU Long Beach
38. Julia Duranti-Martinez, MA, MSCRP
39. Annie Spencer, MA, Doctoral Candidate, CUNY Graduate Center
40. Julia Judge
41. Jonathan Pacheco Bell, MAUP, MLIS, Embedded Urban Planner
42. Shirley Leyro, CUNY
43. Matt Wildey
44. Nicholas MacDonald
45. Antonio Carriere, MPA, Regional Transportation Planner- IMCAL/LCMPO
46. Janquel Acevedo, Student, CUNY
47. Michael Nicholas
48. Jon Golbe, CSP at AHRC-NYC
49. Justin Godard
50. Allison Guess, CUNY Graduate Center and New School Professor
51. Michael Sorkin, CCNY/Terreform
52. Carey Dunfey, MCP
53. Mark Morley, Masters Student, Temple University
54. Nicholas Shatan
55. Satenik Margaryan, BMCC
56. Georges Clement, JustFix.nyc, Cheng Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School
57. Jessica Sanclemente, Urban Planner/Affordable Housing
58. Jonathan Marty, New York University
59. Kate Fisher
60. Michelle Saenz
61. Vincent DeCesare, Hunter College
62. Reshad Hai
63. Joseph Dahlstrom
64. Jack Lundquist
65. Zahra Khalid, The Graduate Center, CUNY
66. Larissa Ho
67. Ben Fuller-Googins
68. Liza Chowdhury
69. Jonathan Morales, Affordable Housing Developer and Planner
70. Tenn Joe Lim
71. Caroline Todd
72. Norma Colon
73. Angela Kelly
74. stephanie ospina
75. Bradley Stewart
76. Vanessa Ordonez , MCP
77. Tal Levran, Hunter College, CUNY
78. Sarah Meier-Zimbler
79. Rachel Tepper
80. Aditi Varshneya
81. Mervett Hefyan
82. Nick Legowski
83. Lucia Cappuccio
84. Allison Luciano
85. Karen Rutberg, AICP
86. Sarah Krusemark, Hunter College Student - MS in Urban Policy
87. Kazembe Balagun
88. Christopher Rice
89. eric soucy, DSA
90. Lynn Ross, AICP, Co-chair, APA Planning for Equity Policy Guide
91. Fox Green
92. K.C. Alvey, Hunter College
93. Priscilla Grim
94. Reyah Spikener, Wellesley College
95. Celeste Hornbach, MUP
96. Priya Mulgaonkar, Hunter College
97. Justin Robertson, AICP, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
98. Jillian Pagano, Hunter College Alum
99. Sydney Céspedes, Planner
100. Anthony Gallegos
101. Josh Bisker
102. Yasmin Toney
103. neta bomani
104. Melanie Kruvelis
105. Makeda Marshall-NeSmith, Urban Planner/ MCRP
106. Guillermo Gomez
107. Rebecca Blythe Pryor
108. Rosa Nazar
109. Sierra Degale
110. Sarah Kontos
111. Zoe Axelrod, Regional Planner, LA County
112. Oksana Mironova
113. Patricia Ming Chou
114. Daniela Kolodesh
115. Débora Aquino
116. Brandon Wilner
117. Aaron Eisenberg
118. Shelby Coley
119. Jess Greenspan, CUNY
120. Alexis Harrison
121. Emily Southard
122. Enjoli Hall
123. Karisha Quiogue
124. Matthew Valentine
125. Victoria Newton Ford
126. Rosie Clarke, Housing Works
127. Julia Heidelman, City of LA
128. Girim Jung, Adjunct Instructor/Felician University
129. Seema Adina
130. Shaun Lin, CUNY Graduate Center
131. Seleeke Flingai
132. Paola Mendez
133. Alyza Enriquez
134. Wilson Sherwin
135. Edber Macedo, City of Los Angeles
136. Jennifer Harris-Hernandez
137. Kelly Britt, Assistant Professor, Brooklyn College
138. Emily Gallagher, Candidate for the New York State Assembly 50th District
139. Jacob Udell
140. M Paloma Giottonini, Phd, UCLA
141. Masoom Moitra, The New School/ Parsons
142. Rahim Kurwa, UIC
143. Victoria Garvey, Hunter College graduate student
144. Melody Yee
145. Ranjana Venkatesh, Hunter College, Department of Urban Policy and Planning
146. shreya mahatwo, Poli Sci Senior at Rutgers University
147. Marcela Mitaynes
148. Beth Bingham
149. Kaiomi Inniss, Clark University Graduate School for International Development, Community, Environment
150. Tanaya Srini, MIT DUSP
151. Catherine Nguyen, APA NY Metro Chapter Diversity Committee
152. Ruth Gourevitch
153. Gina Lee
154. Giovania Tiarachristie, MSCRP
155. Jennel “Puzzle” Nesbitt, 11 years of unjust imprisonment
156. Madeline Schoenfeld, Hunter College
157. ayse yonder
158. Crystal House
159. Amy Starecheski, Columbia Oral History MA Program
160. Lynne Siringo, Hunter College
161. Meredeth Turshen, Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University
162. Chanelle Nicole Frazier, MUPEP Student, Texas Southern University
163. Andrea AK
164. James Beast Baker, CUNY Hunter
165. Katrina Lapira, City of Berkeley
166. Caroline Nagy
167. Liana Katz, MURP
168. Ananya Roy, UCLA
169. Sonia Suresh
170. Alvaro Huerta, Ph.D., California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
171. Ricardo Martinez Campos
172. John Krinsky
173. Akira Drake Rodriguez, University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design
174. Diane Wong, New York University
175. Meredith Phillips Almeida
176. Soniya Munshi, CUNY
177. Jenny Weyel
178. George M. Janes, AICP
179. Arun Kundnani, New York University
180. Maia Woluchem
181. Rachel Goor
182. Gilda Haas, UCLA
183. Stephen Erdman
184. Kenyatta McLean, MIT MCP 2020 Candidate
185. Miranda Bellizia, Hunter Graduate Student
186. Rachel Albetski, Hunter College
187. Spencer Bastedo, Adjunct/CUNY
188. Adilene Sierra
189. Silvia Gonzalez, Doctoral Candidate, UCLA
190. Julia Curbera
191. Katelin Penner, Our Progressive Future
192. Maureen Silverman, UCLA, Masters Urban Planning
193. Parisa Ashraf
194. Julia Field
195. Fatima Ashraf
196. Justin K Starner
197. Adaryll Taylor
198. Michael Bacon, University of Virginia Ph.D. Candidate
199. Norma Colon
200. Heri Kopše
201. Genevieve Carpio, UCLA
202. Joan Byron
203. Emily Ahn Levy
204. Shahana Hanif
205. Jenny Chen, MIT
206. Therese Quinn, Associate Professor of Museum and Exhibition Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
207. Ciera Dudley
208. David Alexis, Brooklyn Fatherhood Partnership, Sickle Cell Thalassemia Patient Network
209. Addison Vawters, Neighborhood Planner
210. Olivia Ildefonso, CUNY Graduate Center
211. Renae Widdison, M.S. City and Planning
212. Maya Wagoner, User Experience Designer at Brooklyn Public Library
213. Melissa Herlitz, AICP
214. Alex Hwee
215. Genevieve Saavedra, Rise
216. Jay Mimes
217. Mark Tseng-Putterman
218. Daphne Lundi
219. Amanda Matles
220. Lenore Slothower, AICP, PP, Retired Professional Planner and Community Development Director
221. Maura Smale, NYC College of Technology, CUNY
222. Mei Lum, Chinatown resident
223. Sami Disu, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
224. Ryan Kurtzman
225. Stephen Maples
226. Hilary Wilson
227. Kay Real
228. Akina Younge
229. Amina Hassen, WXY Studio
230. Raphael Laude, WXY Studio
231. Emilio Balingit, UCLA
232. Justin Holdahl
233. Claudie Mabry
234. Terra Graziani, Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action
235. Norma Rantisi
236. Krystian Boreyko
237. Thalya Reyes, MPP/MCRP
238. Tony Damiano, University of Minnesota
239. Donald Planey, Instructor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
240. Christine Winter
241. Daniel Coghlan
242. Scott Markley, UGA
243. Eleanor Noble, Urban Institute
244. Joaquin Villanueva
245. Ethan Brush, Autist
246. Daniel Swain, Rutgers-Bloustein
247. Diane Stein
248. Chloe Tyznik, Rutgers University
249. Abygail Mangar
250. Cecille de Laurentis
251. Kathryn Ruth McFadden, CNM, RNC-NIC
252. Cara Michell
253. Deanna Van Buren, Executive Director, Designing Justice Designing Spaces
254. Marcia Hale, Assistant Professor UNCG
255. Sharmin Sadequee
256. Kian Goh, UCLA
257. Jenny Akchin
258. Warren J. Wells
259. Tony Daniels
260. Chris Antonelli, JD
261. Jakob Schneider
262. Rafael de Balanzo Joue, CUNY/Urban Resilience Thinking Institute
263. Max Gottlieb, Pratt Institute
Affiliations are listed only for identification and do not signal any official institutional endorsement.
Please also check out the letters from the legal and public health communities in support of No New Jails NYC.