By Michele Evans
NYweeklyRecord.com
7/27/2026
Category: Rikers Island / NYC Department of Correction / Public Safety / Accountability
NEW YORK CITY, NY – New York City’s jail crisis is moving in the wrong direction on several of the measures that matter most.
The city comptroller’s Department of Correction dashboard, updated July 10, shows assaults on staff rose to 71 in May, an increase of 37 from the previous month. Slashings and stabbings reached 26. Use of force also climbed to 24.08 incidents per 100 people in custody during the third quarter of fiscal year 2026, up 3.4 from the prior quarter.
Those numbers are not abstract. They describe a jail system where violence remains routine, force remains common, and both people in custody and correction officers continue to work and live inside unstable conditions.
The dashboard also reports 6,714 people in city jails as of June 1, 49 more than the month before. That population is far above the planned capacity of the four borough-based jails intended to replace Rikers Island.
The city is still legally required to close the Rikers jail complex, but the replacement system has not caught up with the number of people currently detained. That gap raises a basic accountability question: what is the city’s real plan for safely housing thousands of people while violence indicators are worsening and construction remains years behind the original closure timeline?
The latest figures also show four reported deaths in custody in 2026. Each death requires more than a number on a dashboard. It requires a full explanation of what happened, whether warning signs were missed, whether medical care was delayed, and whether jail staff or contractors followed required procedures.
The comptroller’s dashboard is valuable because it places key indicators in one public record. But transparency alone is not reform. Rising assaults, continued slashings, increased use of force, and a growing jail population demand action from the Department of Correction, City Hall, the Board of Correction, and the federal officials overseeing the jail system.
New Yorkers should be told which facilities are driving the increase, whether staffing patterns contributed, how many incidents involved serious injury, and what corrective measures have been ordered. The city should also disclose whether the worsening indicators are concentrated in specific housing units or populations.
Rikers has spent years under court scrutiny for violence, excessive force, and failures to protect people in custody. A dashboard showing deterioration cannot become another monthly ritual that produces data without consequences.
The public deserves measurable answers: who is responsible, what changed, what is being fixed, and when the numbers will begin moving in the other direction.
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