Last operating US prison ship, a grim vestige of mass incarceration, set to close in NYC

A little-known New York City jail believed to be the last operating prison ship in the country is set to shutter the week

Kenneth Williams spent his whole life in Brooklyn, but it wasn’t until a night in 2018 when he crossed a narrow footbridge in shackles, that he learned about New York City’s last floating jail. He remembers the murky East River water below him, the stench of mold, and a sinking feeling that soon turned literal.

“Every once in a while you could feel the boat dropping into the muck,” Williams, 62, said. “It was a stark reminder that this place wasn’t meant for human confinement.”

Docked in the shallows off an industrial edge of the South Bronx, the Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center is a five-story jail barge that stretches the length of two football fields, resembling a container ship stacked with cargo.