We are calling on our elected officials to convert Lincoln Correctional Facility into a Vocational Trade School for our community's youth. We have watched as taxpayers' dollars have been invested in failed programs with a short-term agenda. We have stood by while development has taken place and our youths were declared unskilled, leading them to run the streets. With 26 state prisons being closed and the state inmate population going from 72,899 inmates to now 31,232 inmates, Rikers Island holds anywhere from 20-25,000 pretrial inmates to now having less than 5,600 inmates awaiting trial. This decrease in the prison population. They have stood by while our children suffered from segregated schools and now it is time to change that narrative and give these youths the skills needed to stop both gang and gun violence. It is time to turn this closed prison into a trade school for our youths and give them the skill necessary to be productive in our society.