Rikers Island Correctional Facility has long been known for violent inmates, but recent concerning reports show that the violence has often been perpetrated by the correction officers. A New York Times investigation from Feb. 21 revealed that these incidents were frequently directed at mentally ill inmates. The Times reviewed incident reports from August 2014 to January in order to examine the period after the U.S. Attorney’s office released its own report about the appalling conditions. The office also threatened to sue New York City if the facility did not improve. Despite Mayor Bill de Blasio’s call for “a culture change” at Rikers, there is still an unacceptable number of startlingly violent incidents.

While the topic has been frequently discussed in the past few years, the only significant change has been the elimination of solitary confinement for inmates 21-years-old and younger. This progress only came after several government reports discussed the mistreatment of youths at Rikers, similar to the August report that focused on the abuse of those with mental illnesses. The correction officers who perpetrate these crimes are sometimes fired, including five this past January for an offense in 2012, but problems remain.

Amir Varick Amma, a social activist who was held at Rikers multiple times, told WSN, “We don’t need police reform, we don’t need criminal justice reform; we need to redesign the whole system.”

Rikers Island houses as many people diagnosed with mental illnesses as all 24 psychiatric hospitals in New York state combined. People with mental disorders make up nearly 40 percent of the 11,000 inmates — up 20 percent from eight years ago. Inmates with mental illnesses commit two-thirds of all infractions, and guards are often ill-equipped to deal with them, leading to the use of physical force.

As Rikers continues to be the subject of scrutiny, the question of how those with mental illnesses are treated in our society has become more pertinent. The United States imprisons  the mentally ill rather than providing them with care, a trend that appears to have started when many state mental institutions closed  in the 1980s due to budget cuts. A short-term solution is to show prison guards how to deal properly with mentally ill inmates. Small-scale training in places such as South Carolina have had positive results. Given that workers in psychiatric hospitals undergo intensive training to work among those with mental illnesses, the same standards must be demanded of prison officials.

Mistreatment of prisoners is rampant throughout the United States, and desperately needs to be addressed at a federal level. An emphasis should be placed on inmate education and rehabilitation. The past several years have shown that without these systematic changes, abuse of inmates will continue at Rikers.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Feb. 22 print edition. Email the Editorial Board at [email protected].