A court fight over Rikers Island’s future has produced thousands of pages about the jail complex’s troubled state. Inmate authors have produced thousands more.
A seemingly endless rotation between state forensic hospitals and city jails has meant that some mentally ill detainees stay in the system for years without ever standing trial.
Steven Hutcherson, who was charged in the stabbings of two teenage sisters on Christmas Day, slashed a detainee on Rikers Island three days later, the authorities said.