Rikers Island Expose

Each day more news of the brutality at Rikers Island comes to the attention of the public. It has been easy to escape such horrendous goings on in our backyard until the current investigative series by the The New York Times calls it to our attention. Although we are all informed through popular culture that jails are violent, this exposes the violence against inmates as sport by the corrections officers. Jails are strange lockups. You might say they’re the original in mixed housing. They house people who have been convicted of a crime and are awaiting transfer to state prisons, they house people who are held without bail or people who can’t make bail awaiting trial, they house people who have been convicted of crimes that carry only jail time of up to one year and they house people who have never even jay-walked in their lives. Unless you have a personal stake in the matter, it’s always a place where others are. The new Commissioner Joseph Ponte, a reformer, may be able to make inroads in changing the culture on this isolated island a hair away from flight paths to everywhere (LaGuardia Airport). One of the ways could be to begin with changing the long established language used; meals are called ‘the feed’, backgrounds of inmates are called ‘pedigrees’, lockups are called ‘pens’. Is it any wonder that if humans are referred to with animal references, we will be perceived as such. Please show your concern by writing to the Department of Correction. As a society it’s incumbent on us to be perpetuating civilities. And please read my book Geranium Justice, where I detail the broken system through my lens.