Last month, Mayor Mamdani offered condolences on behalf of New York City to the family of Clarence Woodward, a Rikers Island detainee who died while awaiting trial in connection with the fatal stabbing of one man and the wounding of another.
“We do not yet know the cause of death,” the mayor said, “but we do know that too many New Yorkers have died on Rikers Island. Our administration is fully committed …..(to) closing Rikers Island as quickly as possible.”
The mayor’s decision to personally highlight Woodward’s death raises an obvious question: why this case? To his critics, the answer is political. They argue the statement fit neatly into Mamdani’s broader push to shutter Rikers, turning a single death into a broader indictment of the city jail system.
New York City, with a population of roughly 8.5 million, sees about 60,000 deaths in a typical year — approximately 164 every day. Around 2,000 people die annually from drug overdoses, or about five per day. According to the city Department of Health, 634 homeless New Yorkers died in fiscal year 2025, nearly two per day. Roughly 600 people die by suicide each year. And when Mamdani made his remarks, 172 people had been murdered in New York City during his tenure. How many of those grieving families received a public message of condolence from City Hall?
Listening to the mayor, one might come away believing that deaths on Rikers Island occur daily because of mistreatment or neglect. But the numbers do not support that impression.
In the almost eight years from January 1, 2019, through August 31, 2026, a total of 82 people died in city custody. That is an average of 10 deaths per year. To date in 2026, there have been 7 deaths in city custody, including Woodward. Each one of the other six died from medical complications. Two of them died in hospitals after being transferred from Rikers for medical emergencies, and one died in a holding cell in the Bronx and never even made it to Rikers.
I fully understand that some people may be troubled by my reducing questions of safety on Rikers to cold numbers, but we simply can’t continue to set important public safety policy based on individual incidents and emotional rantings misleadingly used to create false narratives.
So, if 10 people die out of a Rikers population of 6,500, that is one out of every 650 people on Rikers, or about one every 36 days. The Rikers population consists, to a very large degree, of substance abusers, homeless, mentally ill, physically debilitated individuals and repeat criminal offenders. In fact, this is the profile of the city’s jail population as of July 2026, compiled by Mamdani’s own NYC Health and Hospitals Correctional Health Services:
- Enrolled in Mental Health Services: 61%
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Many inmates suffer from multiple health and mental health issues; thus the total exceeds 100%.
Every death is a tragedy — but given this profile, it is nothing short of remarkable that out of 6,500 inmates, an average of only one in 650 dies each year.
The death rate per year in the city for all residents is 1 in 142. For residents of homeless shelters, it’s 1 in 282. For Unsheltered homeless is 1 in 14 to 1 in 23. For Rikers, it’s 1 in 650.
The bottom line is that, incredible as it may sound, homeless people are statistically safer in Rikers than living on the streets of NYC or in a NYC shelter.
The NYC CHS estimates that 29% (1,885) of the inmates on Rikers were classified as homeless. If they died in city custody at the same rate as the non-incarcerated homeless die on NYC streets (1 in 14), that would be 135 in custody deaths a year just among that 1,885 inmate subgroup.
If the inmates on Rikers died at the same rate as the general population in NYC, it would mean there would be 46 deaths a year. Rikers averages 10.
So why is the mayor so concerned with Woodward’s death? Because he has no legitimate arguments to support closing Rikers, reducing the jail population by another 35% and building smaller jails in residential neighborhoods, rather than rebuilding new jails on Rikers Island.
Just as George Floyd’s horrible death was used at demonize police everywhere, and phony statistics and embellished narratives on other cases were used to paint a distorted picture of the entire criminal justice system, the mayor and his allies are using any death in city custody, from whatever cause, known or unknown, to push their decarceration agenda and demonize the entire corrections system.
Their rhetoric is designed to deflect honest debate about the city’s totally irresponsible city plan to close Rikers Island and build just 4,160 jail cells for a city of 8.5 million, whose jails currently house 6,500 inmates. It is deceptive and reckless.
Maybe the mayor should show some compassion for the family of the man Woodward murdered, or the more than 75,622 victims of crime on his watch so far this year, which is 21% higher than it was pre-bail reform in 2019.
But I guess that would keep him too busy. Shame.
Jim Quinn is a retired career prosecutor in the Queens District Attorney’s Office, where he served for 42 years.