Incarceration

Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi issued a frantic letter to public defenders this week calling on them to help reduce the incarcerated population.

Detainees held in the city’s troubled jail system have continued to miss medical appointments as hundreds of jail guards call out sick or miss work.

As a result of the pandemic, nearly a third of the roughly 5,400 people currently held in city jails have been waiting more than a year for a trial.

Currently, more than 4,400 people are being held on Rikers Island and in other city jails pre-trial, mostly due to bails they are unable to post.

Nearly 5,300 adults and juveniles were released from state custody under a state law that gave incarcerated people health credits to get out early.

At a city council hearing on Wednesday, correctional medical officials sounded the alarm about an uptick in coronavirus infections at New York City jails.

"Although the decrease in the population was extremely positive on the macro-level, it did little to change the conditions of the confinement in the jails—the use of force rate remains unacceptably high," a new report says.

Many college education courses in prisons ended in the mid-'90s when the federal Crime Bill barred the incarcerated from receiving federal grants.

Some advocates say four years is too long to wait.

24-year-old Carlos Montero will be sentenced to 13 years in state prison, and will get credit for time served.

As of 2010, United States has 500 prisoners per 100,000 residents, or around 1.6 million prisoners.

Felony arrests have plummeted and misdemeanor arrests have soared, which makes sense in a city where stop-and-frisks are a norm, and bullshit low-level arrests happen every day.