The death of a Rikers Island detainee in his cell on Friday night was the second at the troubled jail this month, but it follows a steep decline in detainee deaths in 2023.
In 2023, nine detainees died at Rikers, which holds people awaiting trial on criminal charges, a steep drop from 19 the year before.
Department of Correction Press Secretary Annais Morales credits the decline to actions the agency has taken, including training correction officers to prevent suicide and reverse drug overdoses, and preventing contraband from entering the facility.
But lawyers and detainees’ advocates say nine deaths are still too many.
“It’s really offensive to have them act like they’ve been making great strides in their practices when broad system failures are still happening repeatedly,” said supervising attorney Veronica Vela, with the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Project.
New York City’s detainee death rate in 2022 was the highest it had been in a quarter-century, according to an analysis of city data by Gothamist. That year, 19 people died in city custody or shortly after being released, out of an average daily population of nearly 6,000 people.
That was the highest death rate since 1996, when 84 people died and the average daily population was nearly 20,000 people. The causes of death in 2022 included at least six suicides and four drug overdoses.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration currently faces a takeover of the city’s jail system due to what lawyers say is now an outsized risk of harm to detainees and staff, with arguments in federal court to continue this fall.
More training for staff
Morales said the department trained 90% of staff to administer the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, commonly known as Narcan. The department also required staff to take suicide prevention training, Morales said, after many officers failed to complete it in 2022.
It also increased CPR training for officers, and secured grant funding to train officers to intervene when…
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