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The New York City Council voted Thursday to shut down one of the country’s most notorious jails on Rikers Island as part of an $8 billion plan to replace the second largest correctional facility in the U.S. with four facilities spread across four of the city’s five boroughs. The plan would see the jail that became synonymous with the worst parts of the American legal system–mass incarceration, pretrial detention, a flawed bail system–close by the year 2026. “For decades, this city and this country’s answer to every societal problem was to throw people in jail,” City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said Wednesday. “Nothing symbolizes those failed policies in this city more than Rikers Island.” Johnson called the the jail “a stain on New York City.”
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