Big congratulations to our friends at the Chicago Crime Lab UChicago Urban Labs on this well-deserved recognition. Nothing beats leading with evidence (as this Vital City piece by Jens Ludwig, Max Kapustin and Ken Corey made clear: vitalcitynyc.org/articles/polic…).

crimelab.uchicago.edu/2024/02/commun…

Thank you Columbia SURGE,
ColumbiaPublicHealth, Ted Alcorn, Sheena Wright, Morgan C Williams Jr, Charlie Branas & @CharlesBranas for Monday's important discussion on the latest research and policies to address gun violence in NYC.

Great lineup at this upcoming Vital City Newmark J-School event on NYC's marijuana roll-out. Register here: eventbrite.com/e/lunch-and-le…

Join us tonight with Vital City Elizabeth Glazer to talk about science-based strategies to tackle violent crime and implementation challenges. Puck Building Rudin Auditorium, 5:30 PM.

This is insulting and laughable. For the Mayor’s spokesperson to act as if the FBI stopping him on the street to seize his devices is part of his routine cooperation.
Enough of trying to deflect with slickness. We need to know what on earth is going on in City Hall.

And Martha Moore deserves special mention for being so thoughtful.

Thanks to ⁦Columbia Law School⁩ for this very kind profile of me and ⁦Vital City⁩. law.columbia.edu/news/archive/e…

Houston, we have a problem: brazen refusal by DOC to comply with court orders, again, and now obstruction. Good faith, governance and safety demand that Adams accept a receiver for DOC without litigation skirmishing.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

An excellent, measured ⁦Errol Louis (@errol.louis on Threads)⁩ account of the importance of truthful communications to the press and the people — a point underscored by the latest report on Rikers by the federal monitor. Honesty is crucial to effective governance. nymag.com/intelligencer/…

The subtitle of today’s monitor’s report could be: 'keep your hand on your wallet.”

Shot through with warnings about the unreliability of reporting, with this coda “the Commissioner continues to make public statements that obfuscate and distort the current state of affairs.”

The monitor’s report reads like a Surgeon General’s warning. After describing how DOC’s public statements of declines in injuries is false, the monitor cautions: “conclusions about the potential decrease in the number of [violent] incidents must be viewed with extreme caution.'

Today’s Rikers monitor report is a scathing account of dizzying circles of dysfunction. Among them: despite 'the richest staffing ratios among the systems with which the Monitoring Team has had experience,' DOC has spent $1.5 billion on OT since the consent decree.

This is the year's ninth death at Rikers, totaling 32 deaths since 1/1/22. It comes alongside the release of a new report from the federal monitor saying that 'alarming conditions...have only worsened' with 'imminent risk of harm to both people in custody and staff.'

Here is a summary of where things stand in New York City's jails per federal monitor Steve Martin. Full report here: tillidgroup.com/wp-content/upl…

.Sarena Townsend 🟦, you do it again! Such a perfect, distilled comment:

Deaths hold up a mirror to the intolerable conditions of life and death in the jails. 2022 ended with a rate of death 8.5x the 2019 low, driven by spike in suicides and “accidents.”

See the sharply rising lines for suicides and accidents and 'pending' which, taken together, drive the overall death rate to heights not seen in a generation.

Our second new chart shows how death rates are rising overall and (or in one case falling) by type. Look at the suicide and accident lines in particular.

On the cusp of a major federal court hearing on Rikers Island, Vital City is sharing two illuminating (and devastating) charts on the state of the city jails. One shows, among other things, that this is the deadliest July there since 2005, and the deadliest month since 2013.

🚨🚨On the eve of a hearing to determine whether New York City Department of Correction can do even the elementary task of “care, custody and control” or whether to hand power over to someone who can, DOC loses a detainee.

Escaping from custody … out of a 5th floor window… and still on the run. 🚨🚨