My jail plan holds just 3,300 — but Rikers closes August 31, 2027 and the
population WON'T STOP GROWING?!◆ S1 E1
6,617
03,300 — SACRED LIMIT—
Over by 3,317
violent felonynonviolentno charge on file1 chibi = 50 souls · 1 mat = 50 bedsHover a chibi for a real record. Check a box to march that category out the gate.
✦ Scroll of Methodology ✦
Every number here is real. Only the shouting is fictional.
Every chibi in the yard stands for 50 real records in the city's
Daily Inmates in Custody
file, and the record you see when you hover one is a real person in that category: age, sex, custody
classification, custody status, gang flag, mental-health flag, infraction flag, admission date, top charge.
Nothing is simulated. Categories come from the top-charge penal law code, so a person charged with six
crimes appears under the most serious one only, which makes every category here more sympathetic than the
underlying case file, not less. The letter ranks are this page's own invention, assigned by offense
severity; New York's statutes grade felonies A-I through E, not D through SSS.
“Violent felony”
Felonies listed in New York Penal Law §70.02, plus all homicide, robbery, felony sex offenses,
arson, kidnapping, and felony domestic-violence assault. Robbery in the third degree and manslaughter in
the second degree are counted as violent here although the statute does not list them.
Mental-health flag
The file's BRADH field: the person is on the mental-health service caseload. It covers
— of the jail and says nothing about severity.
No charge on file
— people have no top charge in the published file.
Counted as nonviolent throughout, which is a generous assumption.
Court appearance
15.6% of everyone released, the reduction in failure-to-appear that detention produces for marginal
defendants in the Philadelphia estimates cited in the report.
New offending
12.2% of everyone released, the reduction in pretrial offending measured for marginal New York City
defendants. Both rates are averages for defendants at the margin of a release decision, applied here to
everyone you let out.