NEW YORK — City jail stabbings and slashings are on an alarming rise even as the numbers of detainees sinks, city statistics show.
For the first seven months of 2022, 296 such incidents were reported — up a dizzying 71% from the 173 reported in the same period last year, the data show. The number of stabbings and slashings in July alone hit 42, nearly matching the 44 reported in the first seven months of 2016 — the year a federal monitor was named to address jail violence.
The troubling spike comes even though the city’s jail population has plunged in the last six years. The stabbings so far this year are spread across a detainee population of fewer than 6,000, while the double-digit count in the same period in 2016 was across a population of about 10,000.
July’s tally was also a jump from the 39 stabbings and slashings in June and the 24 in May, the data further show. In March, there were 66 of such incidents— the highest one-month figure in seven years.
Joseph Russo, head of the union representing assistant and deputy wardens, said one explanation for the surge in violence is a Correction Department policy against separating people by gang affiliation adopted under Commissioner Louis Molina, who took office in January.
“Molina took a stand and it makes sense there might be an initial spike in violence with that decision,” Russo said.
Russo also pointed to the end of punitive segregation as a possible reason, noting that although the jail population is lower there’s a higher concentration of violent offenders.
Critics argue punitive segregation in jails continues, just under different titles. A bill to ban solitary confinement entirely is pending in the City Council.
Others suggested the rise in violence is the result of lingering jail staffing problems; Molina counters that hundreds of officers who were out have retuned to work.
Whatever the cause, the violence continues.
On Thursday about 5 a.m., a large melee erupted among rival gang members at the George R. Vierno Center on Rikers Island, sources said. Five detainees were injured seriously enough to be taken to the hospital. The brawl may have been prolonged because of a lack of staff to respond to quell the violence, the sources said.
The disturbing clash also highlighted a rise in violence at the Vierno Center, which has been an epicenter for stabbings and slashings. Half of the stabbings reported in the city jail system in July — 21 out of the total 42 — were reported there. And out of the 39 stabbings in the jail system in June, 19 were at that facility.
Yet amid the surge, Molina has touted a decline at Rikers Island’s Robert N. Davoren Center, which houses mostly younger detainees. There were eight stabbings and slashings there in July and four in June.
“We’re seeing a lot of success with behavior at RNDC [Davoren Center],” Molina said at the July 12 Board of Correction meeting.
During the same meeting, however, board members suggested to achieve that decline, Molina had merely shipped problem detainees from the Davoren Center into the isolation of 23-hour lockdown in hastily created sections at another Rikers jail, the North Infirmary Command.
“How is it that young adults finish up in these awful spaces 23 hours a day confined behind plexiglass without human contact, programming or clarity on how they can get out of those punitive segregation spaces?” asked Board of Correction member Felipe Franco. “One of them began talking about suicide. Many of them have been there for months.”
Correction officials acknowledged at the meeting at least 31 detainees “causing havoc” had been moved from the Davoren Center to North Infirmary Command — and pledged to address the issue.
Correction Department officials did not respond to requests for comment.
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