New York City Begins Construction on Chinatown Jail Despite Opposition
On January 22, 2026, city officials told residents of New York City’s Chinatown that construction on a jail had recently begun in the neighborhood and that it would take six years to complete.
Expected to cost $3.9 billion, the jail is part of an effort by New York City to build a network of facilities that are smaller and closer to courthouses than Rikers Islands, which the city is required by law to close by 2027. The plan involves constructing jails in each of New York’s boroughs except for Staten Island, and—because construction is underway at jail sites in Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn—the Manhattan jail in Chinatown will be the last to be completed.
Activists in the community have tried to stop the jail’s construction by protesting, filing multiple lawsuits, and lobbying several mayors since it was first announced in 2017, as The City reported. The jail’s opponents contend that it will burden the neighborhood and that construction noise will severely impact their homes and businesses.
If completed as planned, the Chinatown jail will be the world’s tallest at around 300 feet, and it would tower over the low-rise buildings common to the area. The construction site at 125 White Street is the same place where “The Tombs” jail used to stand. Known for its brutality and squalid conditions, “The Tombs” was shut down for many years in the 1970s due to similar issues that currently plague Rikers, according to The Marshall Project.
Critics of the Chinatown jail such as Jan Lee, a co-founder of Neighbors United Below Canal Street, argue that New York City should use the site to build affordable housing instead. A better location for the new jail, they claim, would be the site of the nearby and now-empty Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC).
MCC, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) jail where sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein died in August 2019, was closed in 2021. [See: PLN, Oct. 2021, p. 50]. This alternative, however, would require the federal government to transfer the building to the city; it would also entail creating an entirely new design, a process that could take years to finish. With Rikers Island’s closure fast approaching, city leaders are overriding these concerns.
When Mayor Eric Adams (D) was in office, he spoke against the closing of Rikers and did not set aside money for new jail construction in his budgets. Newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D), on the other hand, campaigned on pledging to close Rikers. Previously, Mamdani opposed building the four jails to replace the long-troubled jail complex, although he later shifted his position. Now, Mamdani faces the challenge of following through on a closure that is over-budget and far behind schedule.
Proponents of the jails plan highlight that constructing jails that are closer to courthouses will eliminate a detainee transportation process known as “bullpen therapy,” a practice common at Rikers in which detainees are shuttled to and from courts at inconvenient times like 3 a.m. Advocates have long called out the practice as a tool used by prosecutors to extract guilty pleas. Building smaller jails that are closer to neighborhood population centers, proponents argue, will also make it easier for detainees to receive visitors.
As of late February 2026, the total jail population of New York City hovered around 6,800 people, with many of them caged at Rikers. The jail complex saw a sizable dip in detainees during the COVID-19 pandemic, although recent spikes mark a return to pre-pandemic levels. Since 2022, more than 30 detainees have died at Rikers, 14 of them in 2025 alone. [See: PLN, Aug. 2025, p.1]. Last year marked nearly a decade since Rikers first came under the oversight of a federal monitor as part of a consent decree settling a class-action lawsuit challenging its grim conditions. See: Nunez v. City of New York, USDC (S.D.N.Y.), Case no. 1:11-cv-05845.
In January 2026, the judge overseeing the Nunez case, who had placed Rikers under federal receivership the year before, appointed an independent “remediation manager.” Nicholas Deml, the new official, previously served as a CIA officer and Vermont’s Department of Corrections commissioner.
Observers anticipate that, despite progress toward finally shuttering Rikers, the slow pace of the four new jails’ construction—along with the lack of interest during the Adams administration—could put the closure on the backburner once again, delaying the deadline from 2027 to potentially 2032.
Sources: The City, The Marshall Project
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