The islANd:

SHOW DECK

STORY

Murder on the Island 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.