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As NYC Cases Rise, Rikers Island Sees Huge Jump In COVID-19 Exposure
By
Cindy Rodriguez
Published Dec 4, 2020
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(JB Nicholas / Gothamist)
By
Cindy Rodriguez
Published Dec 4, 2020
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As New York City’s COVID-19 positivity continues to rise, the City’s Department of Correction has insisted that the jail system’s seven-day average positivity rate remains lower than the city’s. But advocates warn a surge is on its way if the city fails to act fast.
A letter sent Thursday by the Legal Aid Society to New York City’s Board of Correction, the body that oversees city jails, highlighted that the number of people inside Rikers Island who either had COVID-19 or who were exposed to it jumped nearly 700% during the three weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.
“The Board must act now to protect the health and safety of incarcerated people and jail staff,” wrote three attorneys from Legal Aid’s Prisoners’ Rights Project. “A resurgence in the jails once again disproportionately impacts Black and brown people in custody.”
The statistics are part of a weekly report on the jail population that is released by the BOC. The report shows that on November 7th, 96 people spread out over seven housing units on Rikers Island had tested positive for COVID-19 or documented exposure to the virus. By November 27th, the day after Thanksgiving, that number had jumped to 759 people in 33 housing units. Out of that group, there were 78 people being housed in a communicable disease ward.
Correctional Health Services, the group that oversees medical care inside city jails, said only 17 of those 78 people had an active COVID infection, but they declined to say what afflicted the other 61 people in the ward. According to the BOC, the ward also includes people who were showing symptoms and awaiting a test result and people who refused to be tested upon admission.
The figures also showed that between November 21st and November 27th, 31 staff members tested positive for COVID, a large spike compared to previous weeks.
In response to the letter, Board of Correction chair Jennifer Jones-Austin said that board members were also concerned about the uptick in cases, and had urged officials to “take all actions possible” to reduce the jail population, as they did last spring. The pandemic spurred state and city authorities to release 1,477 people from city jails, bringing the population on Rikers down to 3,858 on May 1st.
There are now 4,805 people currently detained on Rikers Island, which Legal Aid lawyers said is about the same size as the population was in late March.
Correctional Health Services said to prevent transmission it offers tests upon admission and at other points, including as part of a trace and contact investigation. According to a written statement, 9,950 tests have been conducted since March 13.
“We have been committed to ensuring that personnel and individuals in custody are safe by creating a successful and extensive COVID Plan, providing comprehensive testing and implementing social distancing measures,” said DOC spokesman, Peter Thorne. “We adapt our housing and distancing strategies according to changing data the same way the city does outside of the jails.”
But in its letter, Legal Aid argued that the jails are too crowded to be safe, pointing out that six out of ten jail facilities on Rikers have housing areas that are at 100% capacity.
Attorney Mary Lynn Werlwas, director of Legal Aid’s Prisoners’ Rights Project, said that if the city didn’t reduce the density immediately there would be no way to stop the infection from rapidly spreading throughout the jail complex.
“We are now back at pre-pandemic levels of the population with housing areas that are operating with 30, 40 sometimes more people crowded into a room, sharing the same bathroom, using the same facilities and breathing the same air,” Werlwas said.
Dr. Robert Cohen, a member of the city’s Board of Correction, shared a similar concern.
“The Department of Correction has thousands of empty beds but insists on overcrowding dormitories, making social distancing impossible,” he wrote in an email. “Beds are bolted to the floor a few feet apart, and most are almost touching each other.”
Cohen said the city must act immediately to save the lives of people living and working in the jail just as they did last spring.
“We know that the scope of the pandemic in the jails will rapidly spread outside of the jails as the people living and working return to their homes. This affects us all,” he said.
This story has been updated to add a clarification from Correctional Health Services.
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department of correction
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Cindy Rodriguez
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