FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Contact: Yonah Zeitz, yonah@katalcenter.org | (347) 201-2769
Follow on Bluesky @KatalCenter | #ShutRikers | #CutShutInvestNY
Statement from the Katal Center on the FY 2027 Executive Budget Hearing Held by the New York City Council Committee on Criminal Justice and the Committee on Finance
Mayor Mamdani Increases the DOC’s Bloated Budget and Fails to Significantly Fund Efforts to Reduce the City’s Jail Population, Leaving the Rikers Island Closure Plan in Limbo
New York, NY: Today, the New York City Council Committee on Criminal Justice and Committee on Finance held a joint hearing on the Fiscal Year 2027 Executive Budget for the Department of Corrections. Right now, the crisis at Rikers is worsening, the jail population is rising, and the closure plan remains off track. Yet the FY2027 executive budget allocates $2.96 billion to DOC, which represents a 3.8% increase for the agency budget compared with last year’s adopted budget. This budget continues the status quo of increasing the budgets used to cage people while inadequately funding the programs and services proven to keep our communities safe and thriving without relying on incarceration.
The budget also fails to investigate and address the increased costs to the Borough-Based Jails (BBJ), which have risen from the original estimate of $8 billion when the closure law was enacted in 2019 to nearly $16 billion today. The budget increases funding for the DOC without a clear and reconfigured plan that provides a definite date for when Rikers will be closed.
See Katal’s written testimony for today’s budget hearing here.
Yonah Zeitz, Advocacy Director at the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice, said: “Last month, two people died at Rikers in less than 24 hours, and the conditions continue to be deplorable. It’s time for Mayor Mamdani to treat the crisis on Rikers with the same fervor and urgency as the affordability crisis. Lives are at stake. This FY2027 Executive Budget is a continuation of the status quo that has allowed the DOC’s budget to balloon while critical programs to reduce the jail population are not expanded and scaled up. Once again, Black, brown, and low-income communities are confronted with a budget proposal that leaves the Rikers closure plan in limbo.
If the mayor is truly committed to shutting Rikers, the city budget should decrease the DOC’s budget and personnel costs to align with the closure plan and invest in proven solutions to safely reduce the jail population, such as ATI’s, supervised release, JISH housing, IMT and FACT teams, B-HEARD mental health responses, and more. The City Council must also use its budgetary power to advance the closure of Rikers and hold the mayor accountable to the closure law.
We demand a budget for New Yorkers that will cut the jail population, shut down Rikers, and invest in real community safety, with housing, health care, including mental health care, education, and jobs.”
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