The truth about Rikers’ deaths and Mamdani’s – Latest News
Last month Mayor Mamdani conveyed his condolences, and that of the town, to the household of Clarence Woodward, an inmate who handed away on Rikers Island whereas awaiting trial for the brutal stabbing homicide of one man and the injuring of one other.
“We do not yet know the cause of death,” the mayor acknowledged, “but we do know that too many New Yorkers have died on Rikers Island. Our administration is fully committed …..(to) closing Rikers Island as quickly as possible.”
The mayor felt compelled to single out this death as a matter requiring his personal consideration. Why? Because it subtlety serves his crass political agenda.
Every 12 months in New York City, population 8.5 million, roughly 60,000 people die — about 164 a day. About 2,000 — 5 a day — die of drug overdoses annually. The NYC Department of Health studies that in fiscal 12 months 2025, 634 homeless people died in NYC — about 2 per day. About 600 people a 12 months commit suicide. At the time Mayor Mamdani made his feedback, 172 people had been murdered in NYC on his watch. How many of these people’s households obtained condolences from the mayor?
You would suppose, listening to the mayor, that people have been dying on daily basis on Rikers from mistreatment and neglect. But that’s simply not true.
In the just about eight years from January 1, 2019, via August 31, 2026, a whole of 82 people died in metropolis custody. That is an average of 10 deaths per 12 months. To date in 2026, there have been 7 deaths in metropolis custody, together with Woodward. Each one of the opposite six died from medical issues. Two of them died in hospitals after being transferred from Rikers for medical emergencies, and one died in a holding cell within the Bronx and by no means even made it to Rikers.
I totally perceive that some people could also be troubled by my lowering questions of security on Rikers to cold numbers, however we merely can’t proceed to set important public security coverage based mostly on particular person incidents and emotional rantings misleadingly used to create false narratives.
So, if 10 people die out of a Rikers population of 6,500, that’s one out of each 650 people on Rikers, or about one each 36 days. The Rikers population consists, to a very giant degree, of substance abusers, homeless, mentally ailing, bodily debilitated people and repeat prison offenders. In reality, that is the profile of the town’s jail population as of July 2026, compiled by Mamdani’s own NYC Health and Hospitals Correctional Health Services:
Enrolled in Mental Health Services: 61%
Serious mental sickness: 23%
Alcohol use dysfunction: 31%
Opioid use dysfunction: 26%
Asthma, COPD or lung illness: 28%
Hypertension, coronary heart illness, coronary heart failure, vascular illness: 17%
Epilepsy, stroke historical past: 9%
Diabetes, hepatitis, kidney illness: 14%
AIDS: 3%
Many inmates endure from a number of health and mental health points; thus the entire exceeds 100%.
Every death is a tragedy — however given this profile, it’s nothing short of outstanding that out of 6,500 inmates, an average of just one in 650 dies annually.
The death charge per 12 months within the metropolis for all residents is 1 in 142. For residents of homeless shelters, it’s 1 in 282. For Unsheltered homeless is 1 in 14 to 1 in 23. For Rikers, it’s 1 in 650.
The backside line is that, unimaginable as it might sound, homeless people are statistically safer in Rikers than residing on the streets of NYC or in a NYC shelter.
The NYC CHS estimates that 29% (1,885) of the inmates on Rikers have been labeled as homeless. If they died in metropolis custody on the identical charge because the non-incarcerated homeless die on NYC streets (1 in 14), that may be 135 in custody deaths a 12 months simply amongst that 1,885 inmate subgroup.
If the inmates on Rikers died on the identical charge as the final population in NYC, it might imply there could be 46 deaths a 12 months. Rikers averages 10.
So why is the mayor so involved with Woodward’s death? Because he has no professional arguments to help closing Rikers, lowering the jail population by one other 35% and building smaller jails in residential neighborhoods, fairly than rebuilding new jails on Rikers Island.
Just as George Floyd’s horrible death was used at demonize police in all places, and phony statistics and embellished narratives on different circumstances have been used to color a distorted image of the complete prison justice system, the mayor and his allies are utilizing any death in metropolis custody, from no matter trigger, recognized or unknown, to push their decarceration agenda and demonize the complete corrections system.
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Their rhetoric is designed to deflect trustworthy debate about the town’s completely irresponsible metropolis plan to close Rikers Island and construct simply 4,160 jail cells for a metropolis of 8.5 million, whose jails at present home 6,500 inmates. It is misleading and reckless.
Maybe the mayor ought to show some compassion for the household of the person Woodward murdered, or the more than 75,622 victims of crime on his watch thus far this 12 months, which is 21% larger than it was pre-bail reform in 2019.
But I assume that may keep him too busy. Shame.
Jim Quinn is a retired profession prosecutor within the Queens District Attorney’s Office, the place he served for 42 years.
