Advocacy group Close Rikers Campaign and City Council members including Lincoln Restler and Tiffany Cabán are calling on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to add $87 million to the city budget for alternatives to incarceration and community reentry programs. They say the funding is necessary to reduce the Rikers Island population enough to close the jail complex by its legally mandated 2027 deadline, as reported by amNewYork following a Tuesday City Council hearing.

Roughly 7,000 people are currently held on Rikers, nearly all of them awaiting trial without a conviction. Advocates and the council members say that figure needs to drop to around 4,000 before the city can shift the remaining population to the four borough-based jails now under construction (not projected to reach full completion until the early to mid 2030s). If the Rikers population does not fall before those facilities open, advocates warn the city could end up filling both Rikers and the new jails at the same time, expanding the total number of people incarcerated rather than reducing it.

The Close Rikers Campaign split the $87 million into two parts: roughly $57 million for alternatives to incarceration and prison diversion programs, and about $30 million for community reentry and support services including low-barrier housing and healthcare. The reentry money targets a specific group: people who have been cleared to leave Rikers but remain detained because they have nowhere to go and no access to the services they need. Mayor Mamdani’s current budget proposal includes some funding for these areas, advocates acknowledged, but not enough to bring the jail population down to the level required for closure.