Hundreds of Rikers Detainees Protest Over Covid and the Cold

About 200 detainees at Rikers Island continued a protest Tuesday, unusual in its size and organization, against continuing poor conditions at the troubled complex, as frustrations mounted over a Covid-19-imposed quarantine.

The detainees, who began their protest Saturday, are refusing meals provided by the Department of Correction, though they are getting food from the commissary, according to a department official. The protesters said in interviews that they have not been allowed outside for weeks. They said they are seeking to highlight unhygienic conditions and frequent violence.

The cold has heightened their woes. In interviews, 11 detainees described dangerous conditions as the temperature has dropped and Covid-19 has spread throughout the facility. Over 370 detainees have recently tested positive for the virus, and less than half of the total population there is fully vaccinated.

“It just gets worse and worse,” said Nelson Pinero, 55, adding that vermin such as mice and water bugs frequently interrupted his sleep. “I don’t wish this upon nobody,” he said.

The large-scale protest drives home the challenges faced by the new Department of Correction Commissioner, Louis Molina, as he takes control of a department that has lurched from crisis to crisis for decades, and has struggled to remain functional during the pandemic. About 5,400 people are currently being held at the facility, the vast majority of them pretrial detainees who have not been found guilty.

A jails official who was not authorized to speak publicly said that the dormitories housing the protesting detainees were under quarantine for Covid-19, which had restricted them from leaving their housing areas. The official said that while the detainees were boycotting the Department’s food, they were still eating commissary food and that as far as he knew, no one was going without food entirely.

But food is hardly the only issue preoccupying the detainees. “There’s no safety for us,” said Richard Colon, 41, one of 11 detainees interviewed recently. “There’s no one to help us. It’s scary in here.”

The Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the conditions in the Robert N. Davoren complex, where the detainees are protesting.

The complex, known as R.N.D.C., is one of eight active jail buildings on Rikers Island. Many young people are housed in the building, and it is among the assignments that correction officers seek to avoid.

A spokesman for the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, a union that represents correction officers, did not respond to a request for comment.

The new commissioner will face political challenges along with the continuing crisis over conditions inside the facility. Like Mayor Eric Adams, Mr. Molina supports punitive segregation — also known as solitary confinement — as a mechanism of punishment for detainees.

At a Tuesday meeting of the Board of Correction, a jails oversight board, Tiffany Cabán, a city councilwoman, said that such treatment amounted to “torture.”

“I want to remind the Department of Corrections that a supermajority of this council opposes solitary confinement and agrees that we’re never going to torture our way to safety,” said Ms. Cabán, who has been a consistent critic of the practice.

In interviews, detainees said that they were not being granted access to recreational programming or the law library and that they had not been allowed outside for weeks. They said violence was rampant in the facility. Several described an altercation that had taken place earlier this week that landed one detainee in the hospital after his face was sliced open.

Detainees noted that, with only one correction officer stationed in their dorms, they were compelled to clean up blood and feces on the floor. They said they worried constantly about their safety.

Last year was the deadliest in New York City’s jails since 2013, with 16 people dying after being held in custody. Their deaths came amid a sharp rise in absenteeism among correction officers which began in 2020 and has continued into this year. At a Board of Correction hearing on Tuesday, a staff member for Mr. Molina, who was appointed the city’s Correction Commissioner in December, said that 2,300 of the close to 9,000 staff members are currently out sick.

“The morale of our staff is at an all-time low,” Mr. Molina said.

Christopher Boyle, a lawyer with the New York County Defender Services who represents some of the incarcerated people who are currently protesting, said in an interview that the situation at Rikers Island had deteriorated since last year.

“This is an emergency situation,” he said.

Michael Tatum, 51, said that he had already been in several fights since being arrested in October on a charge of third-degree burglary. Like a number of others interviewed, he expressed concern about Covid-19, which has surged at Rikers in recent weeks. Like other detainees, Mr. Tatum said that the beds in his dormitory were only a foot away from one another and that it was impossible to remain hygienic.

A number of those interviewed complained about the cold. Arian Medina, 26, said that he was wearing as many thermals, hats and other articles of clothing as he could to stave it off.

“People are going crazy in here,” Mr. Medina said. “They’re losing their minds.”

Raheem Ford, 62, said that he had missed multiple court dates, and there were not enough staff members working to escort detainees to essential appointments. He described unsanitary conditions including black mold in the bathrooms and mildew on the carts that were used to serve food.

“It should be taken over by another agency,” he said.