By Joe Hirsch
News@huntspointexpress.com
Tanya Fields speaks out against jail plan.
Residents clashed over new plans to build a jail in Hunts Point at a crowded public forum on June 4, as the city Department of Corrections outlined its new proposal to locate the jail near the Fulton Fish Market.
Describing the proposal in detail for the first time, Corrections Commissioner Martin Horn revealed that the new plan calls for replacing the 800-bed jail barge on the East River at Halleck Street with a 1,500-bed jail in the parking lot for the barge.
To sweeten the bargain, he said the city is prepared to commit $10 million toward a greenway surrounding the new jail.
His call to picture the new facility did not change the terms of the ongoing public debate that has gripped the neighborhood since the city disclosed in April 2006 that it wanted to build a 2,000-bed jail at the Oak Point rail yard. Public opposition and a lawsuit by the property’s owner scuttled that plan.
“A few months ago we had this fight already for the jail at Oak Point. It’s the same present in a different package,” said high school senior Amanda Septimo, one of more than 20 people who lined up at microphones to voice their opinions.
“It’s sort of insulting that I’m standing here again, talking about the same thing,” said Septimo. “Please just respect that and stop coming to me every couple of months with a new proposal that has a new name.”
As they have in the past, opponents of the plan called for the $375 million allocated for the jail to be spent on education and economic development.
But others said that moving prisoners whose families live in the Bronx from Rikers Island to their home borough made sense.
A number of workers for organizations working for alternatives to incarceration and for programs to help prisoners adjust to life in the community spoke in favor of the plan.
“I think it makes sense. How do we bring jails so families can be connected,” asked Stanley Richardson, an employee of the Osborne Association, whose son was jailed on the barge. “Had he been on Riker’s Island, it would have been a tremendous travel burden for me and my family to go and see him,” he said.
Jamila Johnson, a resident whose 24 year-old son is at Rikers, said, “It’s been a hardship on the whole family, because when your son’s incarcerated, you’re incarcerated.” She said, “It takes a whole day of preparation to go visit,” and continued, “By having a closer residence for my son, it would be a better opportunity for me to be there with him to prepare him for when he comes out.”
Responding to arguments that the jail would be valuable in any way to the community, Hunts Point resident Tanya Fields said, “That’s hogwash to me,” adding, “Let’s talk about efficient ways to keep our young men and women out of jail.”
Fields said that the presence of a jail helps perpetuate an antisocial mindset. “What the community is telling them is that you are a criminal in training,” she said. “We’re waiting for you.”
Still others, sensing the tension between supporters and opponents, worried that the debate is pitting South Bronx residents against one other.
“This has become an us-against-them,” said Anita Antonetty of the Hunts Point youth program Rocking the Boat. “It’s not us against them; this is us.
“We need jobs that lead to a career path that lead to a living wage,” she concluded.
The speakers were among the more than 100 people who packed into the Police Athletic League gymnasium on Longwood Avenue for the forum, sponsored by Community Board 2.
In addition to arguing that loved ones in the Bronx will have an easier time visiting inmates, the Corrections Commissioner argued that a new jail will provide easier access for lawyers and for local non-profit and faith-based organizations.
Horn also invited the crowd to envision a less depressing facility than current jails–“perhaps one that looks out on the river through a glass wall,” he mused.
Nevertheless, many speakers denounced the expenditure on imprisonment when there are other pressing needs.
“I’m teaching kids in bathrooms,” said Stephen Ritz, a sixth grade teacher, who said he hadn’t been planning to attend the forum until his students insisted he speak out against the jail.
Local high school students who mentor young children in a Police Athletic League’s basketball program similarly bemoaned the lack of adequate funding.
“Look what we have,” said teenager Timothy Jenkins, holding up a discolored basketball with faded seams. “A busted-up basketball to play with. We have six basketballs for 300 kids.”
Others said the waterfront should be a resource for economic development. “We thought it could be an area of expansion,” said business owner George Maroulis. “We do provide employment to the Bronx. We do have a vested interest in the Bronx.”
Maroulis said building a pier instead of a jail would promote deliveries via the river, and would help reduce the truck traffic he has seen “grow dramatically” in the last 10 years.
Some residents asked how they could trust the city, harking back to its promise to close the Spofford detention facility, which remains in use for juvenile offenders.
“There’s no denying the community feels betrayed, and I don’t know how to change that,” said Horn. “We can repeat that story for years to come and not do our proposal, and I’ve yet to know how that helps the community.”
The next step, he said, will involve more study.
“We have to listen to what we heard, and engage an engineer” to study the site, Horn said.
A version of this article appeared in the June/July 2008 edition of The Hunts Point Express.