Detention Center on Atlantic to Expand/Reopen

it's been there for years, there hasn't been a problem, so why make one?

It's been closed for a few years, and it was previously uncertain whether it was going to reopen. And there were of course problems associated with it while it was open.

The funniest phrase in the NYT story was something about "retail-jail" space in the new construction.
Cigarettes and condoms, o boy . . .
:twisted:

Oiseau wrote: They should move it to a poor section of Brooklyn, because, after all, isn't that all they lock up in there?

Your trolly posting isn't appreciated.

Part of why the city wants to reopen it is about redistributing prisoners, and keeping them closer to home. Some interesting ideas, for sure . . .

NYTimes wrote: April 3, 2007
To Help Rikers, City Wants More Prisoners in Brooklyn
By TRYMAINE LEE

The city’s Department of Correction wants to double the number of prisoners it plans to house at a reopened Brooklyn House of Detention as part of its effort to ease pressure on the aging jail complex on Rikers Island, officials said yesterday.

The plan to expand the Brooklyn jail, which has been closed since 2003, will take five years and should help the city eliminate beds for 4,000 prisoners at Rikers Island, Correction Department officials said. Most of those inmates would be transferred to the Brooklyn House of Detention, at Boerum Place and Atlantic Avenue, and to a planned jail in the Oak Point section of the Bronx, the officials said.

The Brooklyn jail, in its current state, has room for 749 inmates. The expansion would allow it to house 1,479.

The expansion would be built on empty land next to the House of Detention, which is in the heart of a booming residential and commercial area, and it would include jail space and a retail development, officials said. The existing building would not be altered.

Stephen Morello, a spokesman for the Correction Department, said the city would soon seek proposals from developers about how they might design the combined retail-jail space.

Some neighborhood groups are opposed to the plan to reopen and expand the jail.

“Before it was mothballed, the House of Detention was not a good neighbor,” said Robert Perris, district manager of Community Board No. 2 in Brooklyn.

“The bottom line for people in that corner of Boerum Hill is the impacts of both the Department of Correction and the visitors to the facility have caused in the past and might cause in the future,” he added.

Sandy Balboza, president of the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association, said the reopened jail could hurt the rebounding neighborhood’s momentum. “People have invested recently, they developed around the jail site,” he said. “They’ve invested, and the jail hurts their investment, especially the expansion of the jail.”

A majority of the inmates expected to be sent to the Brooklyn jail would be from the borough, which is in keeping with a corrections trend in which inmates are kept closer to home, Mr. Morello said. Over all, he said, 33 percent of the city’s inmates come out of Brooklyn courts.

“Rikers Island is not a great place to have jails, for a number of reasons,” Mr. Morello said, citing its proximity to La Guardia Airport and the limited access from the mainland to the East River complex.

“It’s an impossible trip for family members, attorneys and aid groups who offer various services to the inmates,” Mr. Morello said. The Correction Department shuffles some 1,500 inmates a day from Rikers Island to court appearances throughout the city in an “inefficient manner that is not good for the justice system,” Mr. Morello said.

He added that 80 percent of the inmates on Rikers Island have not been convicted of any crime and that 50 percent of the prisoners are released within 10 days. The average stay in the jail is 45 days, Mr. Morello said, adding that it does not make sense to have inmates spending so much time traveling from Rikers Island to courts in each borough.

Mr. Perris said the plan to increase the inmate population at the House of Detention is not just about keeping prisoners closer to home.

“That is a very humane goal, but there are people in the community who question whether it’s just rhetorical leverage,” Mr. Perris said. He said the community board’s Transportation and Public Safety Committee and its Land Use Committee both voiced opposition to the expansion at the board’s February meeting.

“Court officers abused placard parking thought the area, and some visitors to the jail would urinate in people’s yards, hide weapons and contraband in flower pots,” Mr. Perris said. “So there is concern that if the jail reopens and doubles in size, these problems will reappear and be worse than they were before.”

Some residents and community groups also spoke out against the plan at a public hearing held by the full board.

Still, many of those who oppose the expansion say they will work with developers to include community goals, particularly in the plans for a retail development.

Mr. Balboza expressed skepticism about that part of the plan. “The retail, how do we know retail can work there?” Mr. Balboza asked, citing the no-parking and no-standing areas along that stretch of Atlantic Avenue and the lack of a viable loading dock.

“We have developers who have come to the neighborhoods around the jail and developed it, not because the jail was there but because people came in and saved these neighborhoods,” Mr. Balboza said.

Mr. Morello said the next step in the Brooklyn jail expansion plan is the Unified Land Use review process. He said the Correction Department also must still buy the 22-acre parcel in the Oak Point section of the Bronx to build a jail where the city plans to house 2,040 inmates.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/nyregion/03jail.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1175630424-5roAyewBIofvagTO+hVbhg

Actually Pitu - the city has always been very clear that it was keeping its options open and that reopening was a real possibility. Didn't they spend millions to renovate it while it was closed? The uncertainty was only wishfull thinking on the part of people who bought expensive condos next door. You are right that there were serious problems with it when it was open. Hopefully the city's zero tolerance for quality of life crimes will make visitors to the jail think twice before they piss on our stoops.

Oiseau wrote: [quote=Jamzer]Hopefully the city's zero tolerance for quality of life crimes will make visitors to the jail think twice before they piss on our stoops.

Zero tolerance? Are you sure you live in NYC?

Jamzer was making a funny.

To be honest, the big problem with it is that it essentially serves as a barrier between Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, and, to a lesser extent, Cobble Hill. I lived here when it was open and it was never a problem - it wasn't like there was screaming into the wee hours of the morning.

A plan to put retail on the Atlantic Avenue, Boerum Place, and Smith Street sides, while moving the jail entrances to the rear on State Street would be great for the neighborhood. There's also an enormous expanse of brick on the Atlantic Ave. facade - that would be a great place for enormous-scale art that could be seen by a large part of the South Brooklyn/Park Slope community.

It would also make sense for them to develop perhaps a second floor above the retail portion of the project to house the bail brokers and the types of businesses that will spring up around a re-opened jail - that would keep them off of the Avenue while producing extra income (in rents) from these businesses.

lest we forget what went on in there...

NYTimes wrote: 11 Jail Guards Accused of Beatings in Brooklyn
By ALAN FEUER
Published: April 12, 2007

Eleven federal jail guards, including a captain and three lieutenants, were charged today with beating two inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, one so badly, officials said, that pools of his blood and bits of his hair lay on the floor of the cell when it was over.

The guards were also charged with covering up the beatings by filing false reports that blamed the inmates for having instigated the attacks. Eight of them pleaded not guilty today at arraignments in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and were released on bail. The three others are expected to be arraigned in federal court within days.

The attacks do not appear to be directly connected and occurred almost four years apart, court papers show, the first in November 2002, the second almost a year ago.

Three of the jail guards charged today — Captain Salvatore LoPresti, Lieutenant Elizabeth Torres and Officer Scott Rosebery — are also accused of abuse charges in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of Muslim inmates who claim they were mistreated at the federal detention center after they were arrested in round-ups following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

more in the link
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/nyregion/12cnd-guards.html?ref=nyregion