Jami Floyd: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Jami Floyd, senior editor for Race & Justice, filling in for Brian Lehrer. Since last December, at least five incarcerated people at Rikers island have died by suicide. Advocates are warning of explosion of death at Rikers, and the city's Board of Corrections last week issued a public condemnation of conditions at the facility. We've got new reporting from WNYC together with the news outlet, The City, which shows that these suicides are part of a much larger increase in the overall rates of self-harm in city jails. Joining me now is WNYC and Gothamist reporter, my colleague on our Race & Justice unit, George Joseph, who's been covering the story for us. George, hello?

George Joseph: Good morning, Jami.

Jami: Good morning to you. We also want to invite our listeners, George, to join this conversation, particularly those who have family or close friends incarcerated at Rikers or other city jails, or if you yourself are or have been incarcerated. Of course, we're always happy to hear from those who represent those who've been held at Rikers. Any of you can help us report the story, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. You can always tweet us @BrianLehrer. George, tell us a bit about these new numbers. Walk us through them. What do the new numbers tell us?

George: The numbers show that the rate of self-harm in city jails is the highest it's ever been in the last five years. We're not only talking about the incidents, the rate, so even counting for population, the problem has never been worse. The latest available data from the second quarter of this year about this spring shows that there were 539 acts of self-harm reported in the city jails, which basically amounts to a rate of 95 incidents per 1,000 detainees.

Jami: George, this is self-harm, as we refer to it, we often think of as suicide, but that's not all we're talking about. There are other ways in which people who are incarcerated might try to injure themselves, or inflict harm on themselves. Tell us a bit about how that's defined.

George: Yes, so we're talking about a wide range of actions here. For example, self-harm can mean something as simple as banging one's head against the wall, or more seriously, cutting one's risks, or even attempted hangings that aren't completed deaths by suicide. Not all of the acts result in death or are fatal, but the numbers do include those acts that are fatal. It's important to note, experts we talked to said some of even the most extreme acts in this data, aren't always intended to end one's life. They can be just a way to call out for help, or seek relief in the face of overwhelming stress, but they can even unintentionally result in fatalities.

Jami: Right, someone who really is just a crying out for help might unintentionally wind up dying. Now, George, when did the rates start going up?

George: The numbers are really clear here. The big spike in self-harm rates started in the summer of last year, 2020. The trend has only worsened since then. To try to get at why this happened at that time, we spoke to a lot of jail insiders, including detainees, health staff, and COs who worked in the jails at the time. Several of our sources argued it made sense that the bump in these incidents started a few months into the pandemic.

Why? Well, for several reasons. One is, at the beginning of the lockdown, the city had more of a will to release people because of the dangers of COVID. Remember those March, April months when the city was really going through a massive fatality crisis? A lot of people in the jails, or relatively a lot of people, were being released. That gave detainees a sense of, "Oh, maybe I'm going to get out. Maybe I'm on one of these lists that will allow me to escape and go back to my family."

Jami: A feeling of hope, hopefulness?

George: Exactly, but only after a few months, that will from the city to release people really started to fade and the courts started pushing more back on that. You remember last summer, we had a lot of concerns about rising gun violence or at that time. In addition, there was, just like in the city outside, a sense of solidarity among some people in the jails who were just trying to help each other to survive, sharing phone PINs, making sure everyone had masks, mutual aid stuff like you'd see outside the prison or jail context, but that can only last for so long.

Jami: It didn't continue. What happened, George, behind bars at Rikers and elsewhere as COVID wore on, we know COVID rates were skyrocketing. We reported on that, but tell us about the emotional and psychological toll.

George: After those initial months, people were unable continue handling the fact that a lot of the programming, and services, and things they just really needed to survive in jails were gone. Recreation time outside is very limited. No family visits. Very drastic cuts to arts and music programming. The kinds of things that people need to survive and get through jail were cut off because of pandemic-related issues. I spoke to Prakash Churaman, a Queens resident who's on house arrest now, he had gone to Rikers that summer. We spoke on the phone, the connection was a bit spotty, but here's how he explained why the self-harm rise only started a few months into the COVID pandemic.

Prakash Churaman: It doesn't surprise me, man, because like I said, it takes time for the human being's mind to deteriorate in that type of setting.

Jami: It is very powerful George to hear from Prakash, who, as you say, is on house arrest now, but really understands as he says, it is deteriorate. He says your mind deteriorates. We want to encourage others to call in if they have a similar comment or experience at 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or if you are a defender, and you've been to Rikers in recent weeks or months, we'd love to hear from you as well, 646-435-7280.

My guest is George Joseph, my colleague at WNYC, and he reported this story with Reuven Blau of the news site, the news website, The City. George, eventually some of these pandemic precautions ended, and people did start to get programming, vaccines. You mentioned the art programs, music programs, things like that started to come back. Why haven't New York City jails gotten back to normal in terms of these self-harm rates that you're reporting on?

George: It's a great question. Things like commissary, the rec time, some of that is starting to come back to varying degrees depending on facility. One of the major problems that has emerged though, is that towards the end of last year and really into this year, there's been a big resurgence of staff members, corrections officers, calling out sick. That has meant that, in some cases, incarcerated people we've interviewed and other staffers have said, there, the population is not getting really basic services that they need.

We're talking about things like food, beds, housing units, really cramped conditions and that can cause stress, anxiety, frustration, and even violence, both from detainees and staff, to each other in between each other. One of the sources that we interviewed, Kristy Hauke is a former mental health clinician who worked at the Rikers intake facility this summer. The conditions were so horrible, they actually drove her to quit because it was taking such a toll on her, but she told us about how in her work area, there was tons of just human waste all over the place, people crowded without sufficient space to sleep. Just really unsanitary conditions on the floor there.

Kristy: The police smelled like actual [bleep] because there's actual [bleep] happening. There's [bleep] everywhere. These guys had barely been fed. If they're fed a meal in like two or three days, that's great. If anything, it's cereal.

Jami: George, we also have on the line with us now, Marco, calling from Queens, who says he works in city jails with people with mental health conditions, I believe. Marco, you're on with George Joseph. Tell us what you know.

Marco: Thank you for having me. Everything the report has said is accurate. I actually serve people with severe mental illness in city jails and I get daily reports during my interviews. The lack of services and the programs are not there because what the report said about the staff not being present, and also just most of the people that goes to city jails have a trauma. They're being re-traumatized because of the punitive model they have in place right now. It's really terrible, and I lived that experience at one point, so I know firsthand about it and I truly have a passion for it.

As a member of the Freedom Agenda, we have tried to close Rikers Island I didn't to make sure that there's also accountability and oversight, and those things are lacking right now, and it's continued to get worse. In fact, today, I had a someone who I interviewed told me that at NIC and Rikers, they're being quarantined in one of the units because they brought someone with COVID. Can you imagine just being in there around everyone, with the violence, with the abuses, the lack of services, then having someone sick. It's terrible.

Jami: Right, Marco, Freedom Agenda, correct me if I've got this wrong, but you were talking about the project dedicated to organizing people and communities directly impacted by incarceration to get to decarceration and transforming the system overall?

Marco: Yes. Correct. As a member also of the Mayor's Office's Community Justice Task Force, I've also tried to change that whole culture where it'd be more rehabilitative than punitive, because we've seen that this model doesn't work the punitive model, and Freedom Agenda has tried as much. We even succeeded in getting Rikers Island closed hopefully by 2027, and having four borough based facilities where there will be more oversight and accountability, and committee involvement.

Jami: Marco, thank you so much for your call and for your important work. George, you also reported on Brandon Rodriguez. This is the story we well-reported in the newsroom, and then you took a deeper dive on this. Brandon Rodriguez died by suicide on Rikers. Tell us about his death, and how it fits into this larger picture that you're reporting on but also Marco is telling us about?

George: I think Brandon Rodriguez's death really speaks to how much of a crisis the city jail system is in right now. He's not the typical case that you would expect for someone wanting to take their life. Before he had come into jail, he had been in touch with his family. He had been brought in on DV, domestic violence charges, but those had been dropped to a misdemeanor, which means that at most, he would be spending a year in jail, he wasn't looking at, in terms of like a long-term prison sentence. He would have some hope of getting out, maybe even without jail time.

Also, his mother had told us that recently before being arrested, he had gotten a job opportunity at FedEx, which he was excited about. In fact, so excited that he actually told his lawyer, being insistent, to really fight his bail so that he could get back to that employment.

Eventually, his bail was reduced to some degree but within a week of entering jail, he took his life. He was found with a piece of cloth wrapped around his neck and his cell. The bottom line is we know that in his very short time at Rikers, something went seriously wrong. We don't know many details about what happened to him in jail at this time, but we do know that he got into some sort of altercation and went to the hospital. According to a family attorney, he had an orbital fracture. Again, ultimately, this experience in Rikers drove a 25-year-old who had things to look forward to in his life, to take his own life.

Jami: George, we have a caller in Manhattan, Randolph, joins us now. Randolph, you're on with WNYC's George Joseph.

Randolph: Hey, George. Hi, Jami. It was a while ago that I experienced what I'm about to relate to you. I don't know if conditions have changed. It was the same in the state prisons as well. If you sought help, if you made a verbal request that you needed help because the conditions you're in are making you despair, and making you feel like there's an immediate dead end to life, they'll put you in a room with the light that doesn't go out, they'll take your clothes from you. You won't have any sheets. Understandably, they feel that that would cause you to, that might enable you to hang yourself, but they have someone staring at you.

It's almost as though if you seek help, you're going to put yourself in a worse situation than you're already in. I know it's hard to understand, but when you're in a-- it's like going from the frying pan into the fire to use a cliche.

Jami: Randolph, you're speaking now as a formerly incarcerated person, if I might ask?

Randolph: Unfortunately. Yes.

Jami: Well, I understand your use of the word unfortunately, I hear you, but I appreciate your calling in and sharing your experience. May I ask where you were incarcerated? Would you be willing to share that?

Randolph: I was in Rikers.

Jami: You were in Rikers?

Randolph: Yes.

Jami: The worst of the worst. It's brutal there.

Randolph: Yes, it's when all, everything that you might have feared subconsciously, or consciously in your life comes before your eyes, and you're just cut off from your own humanity, and from the humanity of others.

Jami: Wow. You're very poetic about it Randolph. I would encourage you to write something. Let me ask you a follow-up if I might, George Joseph and his colleague, Reuven Blau for The City, spoke with corrections officers who worked at Rikers until just a few weeks ago, and they said that one of the big issues now may not have been an issue when you were there Randolph, but they say now is a big issue, that there's a staffing crisis, that they can't do their jobs. They can't give detainees even basic things, not even crisis request, but just basic things. In your experience, Randolph, what would the impact of that kind of absenteeism be on the population?

Randolph: It's not an easy question. It has so many moving parts. The question, I think, is if they're there, what can they do? If they're there and they might as well not be there, what difference does it make if they're there and they're not able? I know people who are involved with monitoring Rikers, and I know that there's been a spike in slashing. I don't know if your desk knows that there's been a spike in slashings.

People may not want to come out of their cells, and know that if they come out of their cells, they'll be walking a plank into shark-infested waters. It's hellish, and that's why Rikers needs to be closed down. Anyone you ever talk with who's been in prison know that the smaller the prison, the better the conditions. There's more controls. The bigger the prison, the more ways for things to go wrong.

Jami: People forget that Rikers is supposed to be a jail. We often slip and call it a prison because it functions as one. Randolph, I can't thank you enough for your call and your commitment to the issue, and courage in speaking today. I hope you'll call us again. George, some final thoughts. Of course we're over time, but that caller was passionate enough that I wanted to stay with him. How can we move forward? How do we get a handle on the self-harm trend?

George: Well, first of all, thank you to the caller. As he was noting, it's not just self-harm, it's also the issue of violence in general, including violence between armed cliques in the system, from staff members, from corrections officers, all of this is related to this dysfunction that we've been talking about. Self-harm is one consequence among many. To get to your question though, what the answer depends on which constituency you're speaking to.

For example, public defenders and formerly incarcerated advocates are arguing that the city needs to recommit and go further in terms of decarceration to empty out the jail so that people aren't subjected to this crisis that we're talking about, which can be deadly, and not getting very basic things. On the other hand, the corrections officer's union COBA, has called for improvements by having more hires, which the city has started to do, although not to the extent that the union has demanded.

On the other hand, the corrections authorities themselves are arguing that corrections officers need to come back to work more. They've amended a medical policy, making it a bit harder for corrections officers to take off for sick leave by requiring city's doctor's notes. On top of all of this, a federal monitor which is overseeing the problems that Rikers has argued. The problem is not about staffing numbers per se, but about dysfunction in the jail authorities' use of staff members, noting that the ratio of detainees to staff is higher still, even with the absentee crisis than in other jail systems across the country.

It argues for increased training, better allocation of staff, making sure staff do what they're supposed to do, and that criticism has come under fire by corrections officers unions. This is a very political question as well, it's not just a public health or public policy one.

Jami: My guest has been WNYC's George Joseph. You can read his full report with The City's Reuven Blau at gothamist.com. George, thank you so much for your reporting.

George: Thank you so much, Jami. I appreciate it.

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