The head of the corrections officers’ union and a former NYPD commissioner criticized the closing of Rikers Island Sunday, calling the plan to build jails throughout the boroughs “insane.”
“When you’re not listening to your police chief who said, ‘Listen, you might be having a problem here because you’re building jails that only hold 3,300. What are you going to do if we have more than 3,300 inmates?’” said Corrections Officers President Elias Husamudeen Sunday morning on The Cats Roundtable hosted by John Catsimatidis.
“I think the City Council Speaker [Johnson] really needs a reality check.”
The City Council approved the mayor’s $8.7 million plan to close the complex, marred by controversy, by 2026, replacing it with four smaller jails in the boroughs.
Former NYPD Police Commissioner, Bernie Kerik, also weighed in on the show and slammed the plan as “a big waste of money.”
“He has a hard time getting all the [homeless] shelters approved.… He wants to put 1500 to 2000 prisoners in downtown Manhattan. Really?” said Kerik, who served as the police commissioner in the early 2000s after a stint as the city’s corrections commissioner.
Husamudeen, though, believes has nothing to do with the jail — but the land Rikers is on.
“It’s a land grab. They want [Rikers] for LaGuardia,” Husamudeen said.
“If they’re doing it for the reason that they say – because they want to bring the families closer to each other – then don’t you think Staten Island should have a jail since 13% of our inmate population lives in Staten Island?” Husamudeen said.
“The location of a jail doesn’t determine whether it’s going to be safe or not. Because the jail is located in a borough, doesn’t make it safe,” he said.