Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. New York City Council

recently approved a plan to build four new borough-based jails to replace the massive detention

complex on Rikers Island. Under this plan, city jails will be able to house just over 3,000 people,

but that's less than half the city's average daily

jail population today. Coming up on the show, Associate Editor Seth Barron and contributing

editor Ralph Manguel will discuss the plan to shut down Rikers and what it could mean for New

Yorkers. The conversation between Seth Barron and Ralph Mengwell begins after this.

Welcome back to Ten Blocks, the podcast of City Journal.

This is your host for today, Seth Barron, City Journal's associate editor.

I'm joined today by Rafael Mangual, fellow and deputy director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute,

and contributing editor at City Journal.

We're talking today about New York City's plan to close Rikers Island

and build four smaller jails to replace what some have called a brutal penal colony in the East

River. The city council voted last week to move ahead with the plan. So we're just going to

talk about what the implications of this new move

are. Rafael, thanks for joining us on 10 blocks. Thanks so much for having me. So why don't you tell us,

what was the problem with Rikers Island? Why does it have to be closed? Well, I'm not really sure. I'm the

one that can answer that question. It doesn't seem to me like closing Rikers Island

is an imperative based on some of the problems that have been pointed out, right? I mean,

from what I understand, the experience for inmates is not particularly good, but what that has to do

with the actual set of buildings that they're housed in is really unclear to me. So, you know, it seems to me

that there was kind of a pre-determined, sort of politically motivated decision that this, that this

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