Prisoners Moved Into Atlantic Ave.
Facility; Will Also Do Work There
By Raanan Geberer
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
ATLANTIC AVENUE -- Local elected officials responded to news about a new group of prisoners being moved into the Brooklyn House of Detention by scheduling a protest meeting for Tuesday morning.
The meeting, which is set to take place at 11:30 in front of the House of Detention itself, on Atlantic Avenue between Smith Street and Boerum Place, will feature remarks by Councilman David Yassky, city Comptroller William Thompson Jr., representatives from the offices of state Sens. Velmanette Montgomery and Eric Adams, and members of community organizations.
The protest was triggered by the seemingly minor move of 35 inmates, all of whom are sentenced to less than a year, into the prison, which has a capacity of 759 beds, this past weekend. The prisoners will also be doing maintenance and cleanup work of the holding cells, according to Steve Morello, deputy commission of the city’s Department of Correction (DOC).
Although the jail hasn’t been used to house prisoners overnight since 2003, “There hasn’t been a day that we haven’t moved prisoners in and out of there [for routine processing],” Morello added.
However, the response must be seen amid the backdrop of the overall struggle over the future of the facility, built around 1960, when Atlantic Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn was far from the “upscale” area it is today.
The Department of Correction has announced plans not only to reopen the facility, but to double its capacity by opening a next-door building about the same size as the first. Retail stores on the ground floor would also be part of the plan.
Neighborhood groups and officials, however, feel that an active jail would impede efforts to upgrade the neighborhood and would discourage further development.
They also say that the city would gain more money by selling the facility for development, and don’t buy DOC’s arguments that it would be more convenient to have jail facilities near the courts, rather than at Rikers Island. In addition, they point to the city’s decreasing crime rate.
Go to Jail—Do Not Pass `Go’
The new building is a ways off, but in February, the DOC plans to move even more inmates there. The reason is that the “holding pen” at Brooklyn Criminal Court, 120 Schermerhorn St., where newly arrived inmates await court appearances and meet with their attorneys, is slated to be renovated.
Evan Thies, a spokesman for many of the opponents of the jail, said that even though stores are planned for the ground floor of the revamped jail, “What would benefit the city more would be affordable housing, also with retail stores on the ground floor. Prisoners coming back and forth in front of the building would scare the [potential] customers away.”
Vis-à -vis the argument about DOC wanting the prisoners nearer the courts, Thies pointed out that “They tore down a jail right next to the Bronx County Courthouse, and built one farther away.” Morello replied that the old Bronx jail was ripe for demolition, “and even though Hunts Point [the site of the new Bronx jail] is farther away, it’s still a lot closer than Rikers Island.”
Jake McGuire, a spokesman for Councilman David Yassky, said the move of the prisoners into the building was a move to jump-start the process of returning the jail to its former use, even before the new building gets under way.
Earlier, Yassky himself said, “At a time of unparalleled financial crisis, this administration would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to reopen and expand a jail we don’t need in the middle of the city’s third-largest commercial district.” Morello replied that it was still cheaper to expand the Atlantic Avenue facility than to rehabilitate outdated buildings at Rikers.
Jo Anne Simon, politically active attorney and Democratic district leader, said, “I’m not sure how many people are there. That’s part of the concern -- the public doesn’t know. Certainly, the community is trying to find out what’s going on. There is a very strong public sentiment shouldn’t reopen, as well as that it shouldn’t be expanded.”
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