Twelve people at Rikers Island have died in custody so far this year. The pandemic is only part of the problem, explains Nick Pinto, who is covering the string of deaths for the Intercept.

Today’s show was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and hosted by Haleema Shah.

Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained.

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