Safe by Design: An Exploration of Jail-Based Injury Across New York City

Research studies on injuries within the jail setting are few and far between. Perhaps the assumption that violent offending and violent victimization precede injury explains the limited attention. We suggest that there is a need for more empirical investigations that distinctly focus on jail-based injury. Using monthly correctional health metrics for New York City jail facilities between January 2017 and June 2019, we performed negative binomial regression modeling to explore the facility-level predictors of injury evaluation reports (IERs). Findings showed that youth-centric jails reduced the likelihood of IERs by 89% and health care-centric jails reduced the likelihood of IERs by 91%. Findings support the use of specialized facilities to mitigate injuries in jail. However, further examinations into the underlying mechanisms of specialized facilities that reduce injury are still required to meet the immediate needs of people who are incarcerated in jails.