(DNAINFO)  Ben Fractenberg | March 23, 2017 — The city’s jail population has fallen by 18 percent since 2013, Mayor Bill de Blasiosaid Thursday.

The daily average population of people housed in facilities including Rikers Island declined from 11,478 in December 2013 to 9,362 in March 2017, officials said. The mayor attributed the drop, in part, to reducing detention of those charged with misdemeanor drug possession.

“The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. did not fall in the last year, and our nation’s incarcerated population remains the largest in the world,” de Blasio said in a statement.

“But New York City has a different story to tell — we are making every effort to ensure that people who do not need to be behind bars are not, all while keeping crime at historic lows. In the last three years, we’ve been working from every angle to keep lower-level offenders out of jail and speed up case delays, and the total jail population has dropped 18% and the population just at Rikers Island has sunk 23% — that’s significant progress.”

Criminal justice reform advocates seized on the news to call for the closing of Rikers Island.

“These numbers show that there are no more excuses. Now is clearly the time to take action to close Rikers,” said Glen Martin, president of JustLeadershipUSA, in a statement.

Source: City’s Jail Population Shrunk 18 Percent in 3 Years, Mayor Says – Midtown – DNAinfo New York