Fourteen people have died in New York City’s jails this year—the deadliest count since 2016. Most of the 14 deaths happened in the Rikers Island jail, known for especially brutal and horrific treatment of prisoners. The huge Rikers complex is located on an island in the East River between the Bronx and Queens. Most people held at Rikers have NOT been convicted of any crime and are there simply because they cannot afford bail.
Four of the deaths in NYC jails occurred in the last two months, in September and October:
- 58-year-old Anthony Scott had autism and struggled with mental illness. He was accused of punching a nurse in the face, was arraigned on an assault charge, held on $15,000 cash bail, and was waiting to be transferred to Rikers Island. He was found hanging in a holding pen in the Manhattan Criminal Court, taken to the hospital, and taken off life support on October 19.
- 64-year-old Victor Mercado died at Rikers on October 15. He had been at Rikers since July after being arrested on gun charges, unable to pay his bail. Mercado had serious health problems, had contracted COVID, was in a wheelchair and spent most of his time at Rikers in the infirmary.
- 24-year-old Stephen Khadu died on a city jail barge near Rikers on September 22 after suffering seizures. Pamela Roth, an attorney for Khadu’s family, says he had ingested too much of a chemical spray known as “Selbuster,” used by guards against prisoners. Roth says guards failed to give Khadu any medical attention.
- 42-year-old Isa Abdul-Karim died at Rikers on September 19. He was in Rikers for minor parole violations and died days before he was to be considered for release. Karim’s partner, Felicia Huff Bullock, says he told her, “They’re not feeding us… They are treating us like animals; worse than animals.” Karim had contracted COVID-19 in the intake “bullpen” and then fell in the shower. He complained of chest pain but got no medical care.
Isa Abdul-Karim died in Rikers Island jail, NY
Stephen Khadu died on a jail barge near Rikers Island jail.
Victor Mercado died at Rikers Island jail.
Anthony Scott died at Manhattan Criminal Court.
Deadly Conditions at Rikers Island
Rikers held over 20,000 prisoners in the early 1990s. This went down to 12,000 in 2010. Then in 2020, due to the rampant spread of COVID, hundreds were released, bringing the number of prisoners to below 4,000. But Rikers’ population has now gone back up to nearly 6,000.
In 2017, after protest and outcry the City Council voted to close Rikers, and Mayor de Blasio said it would close within 10 years, to be replaced with smaller jails. But even if Rikers closes on schedule, this would mean at least six more years of thousands being subjected to hellish brutality every day.
People are supposed to spend only 24 hours in jail intake areas but are often held there for weeks, forced to defecate into plastic bags, fight over clean spots on the floor, and deprived of adequate food, showers, or medicine. Overcrowded and inhumane conditions create a situation where violent incidents among prisoners break out—170 percent more in August 2021 than August 2020. One man said after being jailed at Rikers, “It looks like a slave ship in there…. People were laying beside each other all the way up to the wall, under the bench, and all the way up to the bars.”
Rikers was supposedly designed for prisoners to stay short term before being transferred to state prisons or serving a short sentence. But as of May 2021, officials said that more than 900 people at Rikers had been there for over 600 days, and more than 1,600 people, have been there for more than a year.
An article in the New York Times about Rikers says, “If there’s a hell on earth, it’s in the middle of the East River” and describes a situation of chaos, with prisoners seizing control of entire units and guards participating in beatings or standing by as violence breaks out. One guard was charged with providing a razor blade to a prisoner to use as a weapon against another prisoner.
The brutal and deadly conditions in NYC jails are not an exception to the rule. Groups like the ACLU have documented similar cruel, inhuman, and degrading conditions in jails and prisons across this country.1
Millions of people in prison and jail dungeons in the U.S. are subjected to a living “hell on earth.” This is a product of the system of capitalism-imperialism, a system under which the masses of people are treated as just so much “material” to exploit for profits or to be discarded if they are considered not “useful”—a system where millions are locked up and brutalized to maintain control and a status quo of oppression and exploitation.
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Sources:
“N.Y.C. Jail Deaths Climb to 14 as Detainee Is Taken Off Life Support,” Jan Ransom, New York Times, October 18, 2021
“‘Abject neglect’: critics report chaotic and deadly conditions on Rikers Island,” Erum Salam, Guardian, October 19, 2021
“Rikers Inmate-to-Be Dies by Suicide as New Report Raises Alarm on Ongoing Jail Crisis,” NBC News, October 19, 2021
“A Rikers Island inmate with coronavirus was granted emergency release. He died that afternoon,” Paulina Villegas, Washington Post, October 18, 2021
“Rikers Island and the Shapeshifting Monster of Reform,” Kelly Hayes, Truthout, October 21, 2021
“Inside Rikers: Dysfunction, Lawlessness and Detainees in Control,” Jan Ransom, Jonah E. Bromwich, and Rebecca Davis O’Brien, New York Times, October 18, 2021