The death rate in New York prisons is the highest since 2000; hundreds died in Rikers and other prisons over two decades.

Despite the fact that the number of prisoners in New York prisons has decreased over the past half century, the death rate among prisoners has risen sharply, according to mortality statistics provided by the Daily News.

The death rate on Rikers Island and other detention facilities in 2021 and 2022 was higher than in any other year since 2000, according to City Corrections Board data obtained through a freedom of information request by the Prison Action Coalition, a human rights group.

“We need to be very clear about what is going on here. This is a humanitarian crisis and the state has an obligation to act,” State Senator Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) said.

“As a state, we need to be as focused as possible on the safety of all New Yorkers, and cycling people through these institutions of trauma and desperation only exacerbates the problem for everyone.”

In 2021, with an average of 5,468 inmates per day in prisons operated by the city’s Department of Corrections, 14 inmates died, accounting for 2.56 deaths per 1,000 inmates.

Seventeen prisoners died in 2022, when prisons held an average of 5,562 people daily. This corresponds to a mortality rate of 3.06 per 1,000 prisoners.

The next closest year in terms of mortality was 2001, when 36 inmates died in a year when the average daily prison population was 14,192. It turns out that there are 2.54 deaths per 1000 prisoners.

The figures obtained by the Prison Action Coalition do not include some inmates who died while in custody with the Department of Corrections, while in hospitals, or in places other than prisons.

Mortality data for other US prisons and detention centers is hard to come by. But the death rate in prisons nationwide from 2000 to 2019 was 1.42 per 1,000 people, a study from the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics found.

In the 19 years covered by the federal study, the death rate in New York prisons was slightly higher than the national average of 1.59 per 1,000 people. The federal study does not cover the pandemic periods in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rikers Island and other urban isolation facilities had much lower mortality rates.

In 2019, only three people died of natural causes, out of an average daily city prison population of 7,356, which is 0.41 per 1,000 inmates.

A total of 445 inmates died in prisons between 2000 and 2022, according to the Department of Corrections.

The vast majority died of natural or medical causes, including cases where medical care or emergency response failed. There were also 53 suicides, 14 murders and 30 accidental deaths – most of them overdoses, records show.

According to the records, the vast majority of the dead – 393 people, or 88% – were either black or Hispanic. Forty-eight people listed as white and four people listed as Asian also died over the 23-year period.

Blacks and Hispanics make up 51% of the city’s population, according to the United States Census. Whites make up 40% of the city’s population but account for 11% of prison deaths.

Advocates for the Prison Action Coalition said the sheer number of deaths and the rising death rate are a strong argument against Gov. Hole’s plan to change the bail reform law yet again.

Focusing on the increase in crime, Hochul proposed removing language from the bail law requiring judges to consider the “least restrictive” method of securing people’s return to criminal court hearings.

Hochul’s plan, part of her state budget proposal, would also allow judges to weigh a defendant’s “activities and background”, past criminal convictions, past use or possession of a firearm, and whether the charges include allegations of serious harm. It also allowed judges to consider defendants’ financial circumstances when posting bail.

Defenders say her proposal will result in an increase in the number of prisoners, as they believe it will leave judges without guidance on setting bail.

“I am speechless: 445 people have died and the number continues to rise, and the governor really wants to bring us back,” said Melania Brown, sister of Leilene Polanco, who died of an untreated seizure in solitary confinement in 2019.

“How can we seriously talk about the removal of the most elementary remedies that have existed for decades?”