Tag: Prison
One of the most tragic things about the case of Kalief Browder, the young man who committed suicide after being released from Rikers, was how preventable it was. Browder was arrested at 16, allegedly for having stolen a backpack, and waited there for a trial that took 3 years to throw out. One way to […]
Two seemingly polite, convicted killers who escaped a maximum security prison in upstate New York left behind a note with an illustration of a racist Asian caricature that read: “Have a nice day!” It was left just outside a steel pipe the men reportedly cut through. A photo of the memento was posted to Governor […]
The New Yorker has released 6 minutes of security camera footage from inside Rikers, giving the public a rare and disturbing glimpse into the prison’s “deep-seated culture of violence,” as a report by the United States attorney in Manhattan called it. The video shows two incidents that happened to Kalief Browder, who was arrested in […]
One artist is bringing attention to the inhumane practice of solitary confinement by creating dream home of Black Panther activist Herman Wallace, who was alone in a cell for 41 years. Wallace, who was convicted of stabbing and killing a prison guard, was allowed to leave his cell for 1 hour a few times per […]
Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. intelligence analyst who leaked thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, is not allowed to speak to reporters on the phone or in person, and is forbidden from using the internet as part of her 35-year sentence. But she’s managed a way around all of the restrictions, having given her first […]
Last month, Police Commissioner William Bratton recommended increasing the penalty for resisting arrest from a misdemeanor to a felony. This was a bad idea then, and now the bad idea is spreading to the State Senate. Democrat Tony Avella of Queens has proposed a bill that would create a felony “aggravated resisting arrest” charge for […]
Two more horrifying complaints against the Department of Corrections and its contractors have recently been filed. DNAinfo reports that court documents claim a doctor at the Manhattan Detention Center told an inmate to “throw part of his severed middle finger in the garbage” after a corrections officer accidentally crushed it in an electronic door, and […]
Medical negligence is a huge problem at Rikers Island and New York City Council members are finally acknowledging it. At a criminal justice and Department of Health City Council hearing on Tuesday, council members slammed the private medical provider, Corizon, for its treatment of inmates at Rikers. The Observer reports: “‘The allegations that have mounted […]
The city has limited the involvement of police in its new school suspension policy, but a new video by the New York Civil Liberties Union compels one to wonder how in the world this could count as reform. “I’ve had instances where we had police assigned to our building, who I believe overreacted to particular […]
According to internal documents obtained by the Daily News, over 1,000 — ONE THOUSAND! — corrections officers took a sick day or just didn’t show up to work at Rikers Island during that hyped up snowstorm on January 27th: The Correction Department force of about 3,000 officers scheduled that day was stretched dangerously thin, department […]
