The number of people held in New York City jails has dropped steadily under Mayor Bill de Blasio, and it continued to fall this year as the city emptied out its jails to curb the spread of coronavirus.
But there is one number at Rikers Island and the city’s other jails that has held constant in the last three years, despite the mayor’s strenuous efforts to reduce it: the tally of people in solitary confinement.
Even as the jail population dropped, correction officials have relied on solitary confinement to punish about the same number of inmates each year since 2017, records show.
And that trend continued in the first six months of this year as the jails released hundreds of people because of the pandemic.