Rikers: The Obituaries: Fifteen people at the jail died in 2021. These are their lives — and how they came to an end.

Intelligencer, December 27, 2021: Rikers: The Obituaries: Fifteen people at the jail died in 2021. These are their lives — and how they came to an end.

“2021 began with Rikers Island in a miserable state, with every indication that conditions would soon get much worse. COVID was spiking. The staff was depleted, and the jail was getting more crowded. In January, its population rose above 5,000 — an increase of more than 25 percent from the spring of 2020. After nearly two years without a suicide at the facility, a man hanged himself before the month was out. A gruesome incident followed in early March, then another suicide, then an overdose. The people incarcerated at Rikers continued to die at such a steady rate that the agency charged with investigating deaths in custody couldn’t keep up.”

Additional reading:

ARTnews, January 4, 2022: Painting by Faith Ringgold to Depart Rikers Island Jail Complex for New Home at Brooklyn Museum

The New York Times, December 31, 2021: Behind the Violence at Rikers, Decades of Mismanagement and Dysfunction

designboom, January 4, 2022: six teams are in the running to design 'humane' rikers island replacement jails

Bronx Times, December 31, 2021: Adams vows to bring solitary confinement back to Rikers Island, scrapping reforms