It seems as if New York will actually do something smart about one of the biggest blots on its social system: Rikers Island. Earlier this month, the De Blasio administration announced that it wants to close what is, by all accounts, a hell hole where thousands of prisoners are kept in conditions that breed violence and worsen the problems that caused many of the inmates to wind up there in the first place.

Instead of the big holding tank for criminals, the city will now create four facilities in the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn, each of which will have about 1,500 beds.

Not only that, but these new prisons will also be, partially following the recommendations of study carried out by the Van Alen Institute, hubs that are more than just places of incarceration.