Maggie Williams

When DOC’s Goals and Strategy Don’t Match Up: the Oak Point Jail Proposal

Almost six months ago, on April 25th, members of Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities were observing a public hearing before the City Council Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice. While waiting to hear about alternatives to incarceration, they witnessed the Deputy Commissioner of the NYC Department of Correction testify that the DOC was planning on building a new 2,000 bed jail in the South Bronx at the Oak Point site in Hunts Point.

Since hearing that testimony, over 15 organizations, including The Bronx Defenders, and many individuals have come together to form Community in Unity (CIU), a coalition that is opposed to a jail or power plant being built at Oak Point. The success that CIU has had in these few short months -- bringing together diverse organizations and individuals and gaining the support of many local elected officials -- is because the Oak Point jail proposal raises two significant and inter-related issues: 1) criminal justice policy in NYC; and 2) the lack of transparency and community involvement in proposed development.

Commissioner Horn has stated that he is interested in decreasing the capacity of Rikers Island, where the majority of the 13,000 people who are in the City jail system on any given day are detained, for reasons including:

*It is on a landfill.
*It is in Long Island Sound near fuel farms and other hazardous material sites making it vulnerable to immediate evacuation.
*It is hard to access for families, lawyers, and service providers.

CIU is actually in agreement with Commissioner Horn's reasons for wanting to decrease capacity on Rikers --we don't think people should be held in custody on landfills, or near hazardous materials, and we certainly want to increase the accessibility for family members, lawyers, and service providers. So, we had to question Commissioner Horn's commitment to these goals when he proposed Oak Point because:

*It is on a landfill AND it is in Long Island Sound near fuel farms and other hazardous material sites making it vulnerable to immediate evacuation.
o Oak Point is less than 3/4s of a mile from Rikers Island (the equivalent of 12 city blocks). Inmates and detainees at Oak Point will be exposed to any hazardous materials to which inmates and detainees at Rikers are exposed. It is also directly adjacent to an additional mix of tank farms, power plants, and a sewage sludge processing plant that has drawn repeated protests from the Hunts Point community for the past 14 years for its foul odors.

*It is hard to access for families, service providers, and lawyers.
o Oak Point is far from a subway line and not easy to access. And, families members who visit their loved ones at Oak Point will still have to under-go the same lengthy and de-humanizing visitation procedures that cause most of the delay at Rikers. Detainees at Rikers are produced -- brought to the local courthouse -- to meet with their lawyers. Detainees at borough jails are not produced. Without a change in policy, borough jails might actually decrease lawyers' visits with clients.

Most importantly building the proposal to build the Oak Point jail begs the question why we need to build 2,000 new jail beds when crime continues to decline in NYC. CIU supports Commissioner Horn's plan to bulldoze the temporary beds on Rikers, some of which have been ordered closed by a federal court order. What we question is the need to replace those beds by building two new facilities on Rikers, re-opening the closed Brooklyn House of Detention (and potentially doubling its capacity), and investing 375 million dollars in the construction of 2,000 new beds in Oak Point. There are a lot of ways we could decrease whatever need for beds Commissioner Horn projects, such as increasing alternatives to incarceration, and figuring out to decrease the 25% of people who are held in the City system for 3 days or less (an issue Commissioner Horn has identified himself).

With Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Terminal Market projects fresh in everyone's minds in the Bronx, CIU will not be enticed by short-term and often meaningless community benefits agreements. The opposition to this jail is not a bargaining chip -- in the words of Kelly Terry-Sepulveda, the Executive Managing Director of The Point, "We should not have to cut off our arm to get anything decent in the Bronx." CIU has opposed the Oak Point proposal by holding community meetings and planning sessions every other Monday in the Bronx, by holding a Town Hall meeting in August, by meeting with most of the Bronx City Council members and the Bronx Borough President, and just this past Wednesday, by presenting before the City Council's Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus. This organizing and opposition has now caught the attention of the Commissioner of the NYC Department of Correction, Martin Horn, who is finally coming to speak with those who will be most impacted by this proposal on Monday, the 23rd of October. CIU demands more transparency and community involvement in any development project in the Bronx, and will continue to work to hold the political process accountable to those most impacted by criminal justice policy and community development in NYC.

Community in Unity is a coalition of concerned residents and the following organizations: Abraham House, The Bronx Defenders, Bronx Pryde, Center for Constitutional Rights, Critical Resistance, Elton Avenue Homeowners' Association, For A Better Bronx, Green Worker Cooperatives, Justice Works Community, Mothers on the Move, NY Civic Participation Project, The Point CDC, Prison Moratorium Project, Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities, Sustainable South Bronx, Urban Justice Center Mental Health Project, We Stay/Nos Quedamos, and Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice.

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Posted at 9:40 AM, Oct 13, 2006 in
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