After visiting her son on Rikers Island final June, Benjamin Kelly’s mom dialed 311 in a panic.
He was hallucinating about an insect crawling up his nostril, useless our bodies within the partitions and one thing reaching up from the ground to seize him, Angela Kelly informed the operator.
She urged the jail’s medical employees to alter his medicine.
That by no means occurred, in line with a report by town’s Board of Correction.
Two weeks later, a correction officer discovered Kelly, 37, hanging from a bedsheet contained in the Eric M. Taylor Heart, one in every of 10 jails on the island.
The determined name was one in every of 40,483 complaints logged to town’s 311 hotline concerning the troubled jail system in 2025, in line with metropolis data, which present greater than 30,000 calls a yr since 2021.
The 311 system was launched in the course of the Bloomberg administration as a state-of-the-art method for New Yorkers to speak with metropolis businesses about every thing from potholes to social service advantages to noise complaints.
However grievances about situations contained in the jails don’t operate like typical 311 “service requests,” that are publicly recorded on-line, forwarded to the suitable company and closed out when the company says they’ve been tackled.
As a substitute, they’re routed to the Division of Correction as “buyer feedback,” funneled to the company by means of a web-based kind despatched to the commissioner’s workplace.
Some detainees and their family members say their requires assist go unanswered, contending the hotline permits frontline officers and supervisors to deflect or ignore direct complaints and requests for help.
“It’s like their largest cop-out is to only say name 311,” mentioned Natalie Fiorenzo, a corrections specialist with New York County Defender Providers. “An officer or captain will let you know to have your shopper put in a 311 criticism. And everybody is aware of these complaints don’t go wherever.”
The variety of 311 complaints about Rikers started to extend in 2015 when town made cellphone calls free for detainees.
In line with town’s tech company, which operates the hotline, the 311 calls are forwarded to the Division of Correction’s workplace of constituent companies and grievance companies. Jail employees in that unit are alleged to ahead the complaints to the related jail officers.
The medical complaints are despatched to town’s Correctional Well being Providers, which oversees therapy for folks behind bars.
As a result of they aren’t labeled as formal service requests, they don’t seem within the metropolis’s on-line 311 Open Information portal.
Moreover, the kinds of complaints and the way lengthy it takes to shut them out are usually not made public.
A small handful of calls do truly land on the general public portal annually and are often forwarded to businesses just like the Well being Division, NYPD and Buildings Division. Metropolis officers didn’t clarify why these calls weren’t immediately forwarded to the DOC.
These complaints have been closed inside 18 days on common with none discovering of wrongdoing or want for correction, in line with town knowledge.
General, detainees and their family members say the 311 calls can vary from reviews over frigid jail models, pleas to switch to a special facility, questions on Rikers’ visitation course of and requests for specialised diets. Additionally they generally flag insufficient medical care.
Some 311 calls result in motion.
Crystal Steward, 39, mentioned her 21-year-old son, who has been held at Rikers Island for near a yr, was denied out of doors recreation, laundry companies and psychological well being companies a number of occasions.
After she referred to as 311 on three totally different events, she mentioned issues modified.
“They often get issues achieved once I name,” Steward informed THE CITY as she waited in line Wednesday afternoon to go to her son on Rikers Island.
Jazzy, who relies in Brooklyn and declined to incorporate her final identify as a result of she feared her boyfriend might face retaliation from correction officers at Rikers, agreed.
She mentioned she calls 311 commonly after her boyfriend tells her concerning the lack of sizzling water within the showers, poor meals and the employees treating incarcerated folks poorly.
“He’ll name me concerning the warmth being mounted, and I’m pondering, ‘That’s a coincidence, I simply referred to as them,’” she mentioned whereas on the Fulton Road shuttle headed to Rikers.
Kaylim Holmes, 34, a former detainee, mentioned he referred to as 311 a number of occasions whereas he was incarcerated. His complaints included mice, extreme warmth and mould within the showers, he informed THE CITY simply as he was launched from jail Wednesday.
After he made the calls, he mentioned he was transferred from the Otis Bantum Correctional Heart to the George R. Vierno Heart inside the island.
However the issues persevered.
“I used to be freezing within the cell,” Holmes recalled.
Diva Mackenzie, 42, Harlem, informed THE CITY she referred to as 311 asking for info on the place her boyfriend was incarcerated after his January arrest.
“I referred to as and so they acted like they couldn’t assist me,” Mackenzie mentioned.
Alex Rotar, who’s at present locked up on a gun possession cost tied to a psychological well being breakdown, mentioned he desperately tried to dam a switch to a different facility on Rikers. He was afraid that transferring to a different unit would put him extra in danger with high-classification detainees within the space.
However his a number of 311 calls weren’t sufficient to persuade jail officers to dam the switch, he mentioned.
Throughout a cellphone interview from Rikers on Friday, Rotar informed THE CITY that he additionally lately referred to as 311 to report a combat between detainees that left one injured. “They by no means adopted up,” he mentioned.
Detainees positioned in restrictive housing models — much like solitary confinement — have a very tough time utilizing the hotline, in line with Fiorenzo from the New York County Defenders, which represents purchasers who can’t afford a non-public lawyer.
Detainees begin in a extra restrictive Degree 1 unit and might transfer to a much less restrictive Degree 2 and are finally alleged to return to the overall inhabitants.
However these in Degree 1 face the steepest obstacles, she mentioned.
“They used to have the identical entry to cellphone calls as anybody else on the island — one thing like 20 minutes each few hours,” Fiorenzo mentioned. “Now it’s been lower to about six minutes a day.”
That restriction could make it almost unattainable for detainees to hunt assist, at the same time as these models generate a few of the most severe complaints.
“That’s the place we hear about plenty of points, as a result of it’s primarily solitary,” she mentioned. “The situations may be a lot harsher.”
The town’s Board of Correction, which oversees the division, additionally has a hotline for folks in custody. A few of these calls are performed in the course of the board’s month-to-month assembly. However the complete variety of calls made to the board annually and the way they’re dealt with will not be posted on-line.
As for Benjamin Kelly, a Board of Correction investigation discovered that his mom had warned jail officers her son was on the incorrect medicine. She referred to as 311 to inform them he ought to be on the antipsychotic Clozaril, not mood-stabilizing medication like Depakote, which she mentioned had by no means helped his signs.
Information present 311 operators transferred her on to Correctional Well being Providers, the place she once more pleaded for assist, saying her son was in misery and crying. Information reveal {that a} medical clinician was despatched to talk with him at his cell, however he refused, shouting for the employees member to go away.
The 311 criticism was solely closed — with out documenting any motion taken — after Kelly died on June 20, 2025, the board evaluate mentioned.
No additional follow-up was recorded.
