Chair Brooks-Powers questions borough-based jail plans for women

Just pivoting to borough-based jails.

What is the Department of Correction's current plan for housing women and gender expansive people after Riker's Island closes?

Thank you for your question.

I think there's a few things that are being explored right now for how we're supporting both women and gender expansive people after Rikers.

At this time, I believe there are plans for us to consider the Queens Detention Center, although I think other options are being looked into right now.

That's good to know because the current plan states that there will be 450 beds for women and gender expansive people at the Queensborough Base Jail.

And one, I'm curious as to how we came to that number and two, why are we limiting the location for women to one location, considering that majority of the women that are in custody are often the caregivers in their household,

placing a burden on them when the men are in their respective boroughs.

So I'm just curious how we decided that the women had to be in one borough.

Yeah, that's a good question because it's been a lot of planning, and I think there has been some conversation back and forth as we've solicited community feedback.

I believe most of the...

Numbers that we were talking about in terms of bed space were based on previous projections as, you know, kind of years ago these were coming to fruition.

And my understanding is similar to sort of how we operate on Rikers.

We recognize that when we have certain populations, they need specialized services.

And in order to offer those specialized services, it can be helpful to have them all in one location so that all those services can kind of be hubbed in that location as well.

I believe that was part of the thinking in terms of designing it in that manner.

How many women are in custody now, today?

Give me one second.

482.

Okay, so not far from the 450.

Is there an opportunity to revisit having women in just one location?

Well, I would say I think there is an opportunity for us to consider a variety of ways that we can support women before they even come into our custody.

And so I think the city is open to these conversations.

But to be clear, in terms of the construction and the design of the four borough-based jails, is there still an opportunity?

To accommodate women at more than just the Queens location?

Quite honestly, we'd have to get back to you.

Okay.

I would greatly appreciate if we could explore that.

I think that it is problematic that we only place the women in one, and I've been saying this from the moment it was announced, quite honestly.

As chair now, I want to be able to work with the administration to try to work through that because we do have folks that whether they're pregnant, they may have kids at home, it just places an extra barrier when

the whole...

Idea behind these borough base included having people being connected to community.

and connected to family.

So I think that it's a bit unfair that we're now saying, okay, accept the women.

Because they require different levels of care.

I think it's the obligation and the responsibility of the Department of Corrections to ensure that no matter where they are, that they're getting that care.