NYC communities fight jail project and score wins | Liberation News

Pressured by attendees holding up signs reading “Fund communities, not jails!” and “Unfair, unsafe, too big – vote no!” on May 28, the lower Manhattan community board voted against the city’s proposed plan to tear down the Manhattan Detention Complex and build a larger jail in Chinatown.

Across New York City, community members and organizers with the No New Jails campaign have made it loud and clear that this plan is unacceptable. The NNJ campaign has its roots in the decades-long struggle to close Rikers Island, the notorious prison complex in which almost 80 percent of inmates have not been convicted of any crime and are locked up simply because they cannot afford bail. Keep reading.