NEW YORK (AP) — Mayor-elect Eric Adams named Las Vegas jail official and former NYPD officer Louis Molina as his incoming head of the city’s jail system on Thursday.
Molina, who oversees the Las Vegas city jail in his current role as the head of the Department of Public Safety, will be the next commissioner of New York City’s Department of Correction.
Molina, a Bronx native, will be the first Latinx person to serve in the role.
“For too long we have managed our public safety approach with slogans and not science,” Molina said after being introduced by Adams at a press event Thursday.
Molina will take over the job once Adams is sworn in on Jan. 1 and will oversee the city’s 10 jail facilities, including the troubled Rikers Island complex, which has about 9,000 corrections officers and 5,000 inmates.
“Rikers Island has been a national embarrassment and we have ignored it,” Adams said at Thursday’s event, while promising the city was still on track to shut the infamous jail down.
