Two weeks later, a correction officer found Kelly, 37, hanging from a bedsheet inside the Eric M. Taylor Center, one of 10 jails on the island.<\/p>\n
The desperate call was one of 40,483 complaints logged to the city\u2019s 311 hotline about the troubled jail system in 2025, according to city records, which show more than 30,000 calls a year since 2021.<\/p>\n
The 311 system was launched during the Bloomberg administration as a state-of-the-art way for New Yorkers to communicate with city agencies about everything from potholes to social service benefits to noise complaints.<\/p>\n
But grievances about conditions inside the jails don\u2019t function like typical 311 \u201cservice requests,\u201d which are publicly recorded online, forwarded to the appropriate agency and closed out when the agency says they have been tackled.<\/p>\n
Instead, they are routed to the Department of Correction as \u201ccustomer comments,\u201d funneled to the agency through an online form sent to the commissioner\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some detainees and their loved ones say their calls for help go unanswered, contending the hotline allows frontline officers and supervisors to deflect or ignore direct complaints and requests for assistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like their biggest cop-out is to just say call 311,\u201d said Natalie Fiorenzo, a corrections specialist with New York County Defender Services. \u201cAn officer or captain will tell you to have your client put in a 311 complaint. And everyone knows those complaints don\u2019t go anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The number of 311 complaints about Rikers began to increase in 2015 when the city made phone calls free for detainees.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the city\u2019s tech agency, which operates the hotline, the 311 calls are forwarded to the Department of Correction\u2019s office of constituent services and grievance services. Jail staff in that unit are supposed to forward the complaints to the relevant jail officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The medical complaints are sent to the city\u2019s Correctional Health Services, which oversees treatment for people behind bars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because they are not classified as formal service requests, they do not appear in the city\u2019s online 311 Open Data portal<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Additionally, the types of complaints and how long it takes to close them out are typically not made public.\u00a0<\/p>\n A small handful of calls do actually land on the public portal each year and are usually forwarded to agencies like the Health Department, NYPD and Buildings Department. City officials did not explain why those calls weren\u2019t directly forwarded to the DOC.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those complaints were closed within 18 days on average without any finding of wrongdoing or need for correction, according to the city data.\u00a0<\/p>\n Overall, detainees and their loved ones say the 311 calls can range from reports over frigid jail units, pleas to transfer to a different facility, questions about Rikers\u2019 visitation process and requests for specialized diets. They also sometimes flag inadequate medical care.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some 311 calls lead to action.\u00a0<\/p>\n Crystal Steward, 39, said her 21-year-old son, who has been held at Rikers Island for close to a year, was denied outdoor recreation, laundry services and mental health services multiple times.\u00a0<\/p>\n After she called 311 on three different occasions, she said things changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey usually get things done when I call,\u201d Steward told THE CITY as she waited in line Wednesday afternoon to visit her son on Rikers Island.<\/p>\n Jazzy, who is based in Brooklyn and declined to include her last name because she feared her boyfriend could face retaliation from correction officers at Rikers, agreed.\u00a0<\/p>\n She said she calls 311 regularly after her boyfriend tells her about the lack of hot water in the showers, poor food and the staff treating incarcerated people poorly.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019ll call me about the heat being fixed, and I\u2019m thinking, \u2018That\u2019s a coincidence, I just called them,\u2019\u201d she said while on the Fulton Street shuttle headed to Rikers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kaylim Holmes, 34, a former detainee, said he called 311 multiple times while he was incarcerated. His complaints included mice, excessive heat and mold in the showers, he told THE CITY just as he was released from jail Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n After he made the calls, he said he was transferred from the Otis Bantum Correctional Center to the George R. Vierno Center within the island.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the problems persisted.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was freezing in the cell,\u201d Holmes recalled.<\/p>\n Diva Mackenzie, 42, Harlem, told THE CITY she called 311 asking for information on where her boyfriend was incarcerated after his January arrest.<\/p>\n \u201cI called and they acted like they couldn\u2019t help me,\u201d Mackenzie said.<\/p>\n![\"Diva](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/032526_rikers_311-2.jpg\")
Diva MacKenzie waits to visit a loved one on Rikers Island, March 25, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n