Tag: Inmates
Puma sneakers — once a hot, kill-for commodity inside the walls of Rikers — are now so bland that they’re the only footwear allowed into the jail from the outside world. Ratter writer Justine Sharrock chronicled the 180-degree shift in attitude, and presents some theories for how it happened. In the ’80s, Pumas were the […]
New York corrections officials will no longer place inmates under 18 in segregated housing — a face name for solitary confinement — reports the Associated Press. In some cases, prisoners as young as 9-years-old were subjected to “special housing.” This common sense policy wasn’t adopted by prison brass because they all of a sudden had […]
According to an internal memo, the New York City Correction Department will stop putting 16- and 17-year-old inmates into solitary confinement by the end of 2014, the New York Times reports. There are currently 51 adolescents in solitary confinement at Rikers Island, where it is used as “a primary form of punishment” of teens. In the memo dated September 25th, the correction […]
Andy Henriquez died in his solitary confinement cell from a torn aorta, in severe pain, while guards ignored his and other inmates’ cries for help, DNAinfo reports. After a shocking report detailing institutionalized abuse, rights violations, a “culture of violence” and frequent medical emergencies experienced by young inmates at Rikers Island, other cases of systemic corruption are being brought to light, […]
On WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show on Tuesday morning, fill-in host Manoush Zomorodi was doing a segment about yesterday’s Department of Justice report on the rampant abuses, corruption and civil rights violations of adolescent inmates at Rikers Island. Toward the end of the segment, around the 26-minute mark, Zomorodi goes to the phone lines to take an anonymous […]