Sixty percent of the nearly 7,000 inmates at Rikers Island in October required mental
health services, up from 42% in a 2016, according to a new report from the Data
Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College and the Katal Center for Equity, Health and
Justice.
The rising demand for mental health and substance use services at the jails — amid a
looming mandate to close the troubled jail complex — points to the need to increase
access to alternative treatment programs for New Yorkers accused of crimes, according
to criminal justice reform advocates.
A substantial subset of inmates, 22%, had a serious mental illness such as bipolar
disorder or schizophrenia in October, up from 17% five years ago, according to city data
cited in the report. Alcoholism and drug addiction were also prevalent: One in four
Rikers inmates had an opioid use disorder and 30% had an alcohol use disorder, the
report found.
The report recommended a range of reforms, including expanding access to special
treatment courts, more robust reentry planning and additional secure hospital beds for
people with mental health conditions who do need to be in a more restrictive setting. It
also calls for improved services for people with co-occurring mental health and
substance use issues.
These recommendations largely align with those offered earlier this year by the
Independent Rikers Commission, a group seeking to advise the city on the closure of
Rikers whose members hail from backgrounds in mental health, law enforcement,
corrections and other fields.
“We’re about to have a new mayoral administration that is going to support closing
Rikers Island,” said Michael Rempel, director of John Jay’s Data Collaborative for
Justice and one of the researchers on the report. “We think it’s a good moment to be
helpful and outline concrete strategies that might achieve the goals we share.”
When Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani takes office in January, he will be under pressure
to make progress toward closing Rikers. He has said he aims to do so by the legally
mandated 2027 deadline, even though the city is far behind schedule.
The population at Rikers creeped up under Mayor Eric Adams after plummeting under
his predecessor Bill de Blasio, and still exceeds the capacity of the four borough-based
jails that are being constructed to replace the complex. Those jails, located in Queens,
Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan, also aren’t on track to be completed until years
after the Rikers closure deadline.
Katal and the Data Collaborative for Justice recommended chipping away at the jail
population by expanding the capacity of special treatment courts. These courts allow participants to complete mandated, supervised treatment plans in the community in
order to avoid jail time.
The city’s mental health courts enrolled just 360 participants in 2023, representing
0.2% of the cases that were arraigned, despite evidence that the model helps reduce
recidivism, the report found.
As they currently function, they also don’t necessarily help participants avoid pre-trial
incarceration.
Tracy Barber, who has borderline personality and bipolar disorders, spent 10 months at
Rikers after being arrested for assaulting a neighbor in 2019, an incident she said
occurred while she was drinking and in the throes of a psychiatric episode.
“For the first time and the only time in my life, I began hearing voices,” Barber told
Gothamist of her time at Rikers. “I just absolutely became broken psychologically.”
Eventually, Barber was assessed and determined to be eligible to go through the
Manhattan Mental Health Court, which she said connected her with a therapist,
outpatient rehab and a peer counselor. She said she also spent some time in a mental
health crisis respite center after leaving jail.
Barber said she credits the mental health court and the services she was connected to
with enabling her to now hold down a full-time job as an administrative assistant at the
nonprofit Services for the Underserved and to “function without substances.”
She said she just wished she didn’t have to go through Rikers to get there.
A bill pending in the state Legislature, known as the Treatment Court Expansion Act,
would allow people with a broader range of criminal charges and behavioral health
needs to be eligible for diversion and wouldn’t require them to plead guilty first.
That legislation, which was endorsed in the report, advanced in the state Senate and
Assembly last year but didn’t come up for a full vote.
Gov. Kathy Hochul did not respond to a request for comment on whether she supports
the measure.