Governor Andrew Cuomo says he supports City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito's plan to close Rikers Island.
During her State of the City address last week, Mark-Viverito made several criminal justice proposals.
One of them includes shrinking the inmate population at the jail, eventually leading to its closure.
She says Rikers has come to "represent the city's worst tendencies and biggest failures."
"Rikers has been the scene of problems for years. They've gotten worse recently. We had a federal investigation for civil rights violations, but it is a truly troubled facility, and I belive the design of it is one of the aggravating factors," Cuomo said.
The City Council speaker says she is forming a commission to examine and explore the possibility of Rikers' inmates being transferred to smaller borough jails.