Excerpt from new ebook, ‘Rikers: An Oral Historical past,’ tells horrors of solitary confinement

In “Rikers: An Oral Historical past,” which hits bookstores Tuesday, authors Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau delve deep into the tradition and historical past of Rikers Island. Rayman covers felony justice for the New York Each day Information, specializing in the town jails. He’s additionally the creator of “The NYPD Tapes.” Blau is a former Each day Information reporter who’s now a senior reporter masking the jails and politics for The Metropolis.

“No person Can Hear the Wheels Squeak Anymore”

The United Nations deems something greater than fifteen consecutive days of solitary confinement a type of torture. For years, the boundaries within the New York Metropolis jail system went far past that.

At its peak, there have been almost a thousand so-­referred to as Punitive Segregation cells, with some particularly devoted for teenagers and folks with psychological sickness. Analysis exhibits that twenty-­three hours a day in a cell results in severe psychological injury, particularly for adolescents, whose brains are nonetheless creating. Research additionally present that the punishment does little to lower violence as a result of those self same individuals are later launched proper again into the final inhabitants.

Over time, medical consultants have decided the long-­time period damages of solitary, particularly for weak populations, far outweigh any constructive preliminary consequence. In New York Metropolis, there at the moment are strict limits on how lengthy individuals may be remoted, and a few teams are completely exempt from solitary.

Jail officers and union leaders have strenuously fought every of the modifications, saying the punishment is required to maintain individuals who comply with the foundations protected.

HECTOR “PASTOR BENNY” CUSTODIO, former Latin King chief, detained 1991 to 1994: I first went in 1992, within the Bing. You solely bathed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Typically they might spit in your meals. They might put your meals below your door. You needed to look completely by means of the meals. They gave you a monkey go well with; none of your personal garments. Through the summer season, you had blistering warmth. Think about spending nearly 4 years in your toilet, locked up, and never having the ability to go wherever. That’s what it was like. You have been so shut but up to now. I’ve seen guys kill themselves, lose their thoughts, get damaged. I needed to keep targeted. I mentioned, sooner or later I’m going to be free. I’m not going to let these individuals overpower me.

RON KUBY, protection legal professional: I had one consumer despatched to solitary for thirty days for possession of Tylenol, simply over-­the-­counter Tylenol, and a few make-up. This was on the Rose M. Singer Heart, which has ladies. In all probability the extra horrific tales are the usage of solitary confinement to warehouse the severely mentally ailing. I recall one case, I’m not gonna reveal her identify, however she was recognized at Rose M. Singer Heart as Shitty. And she or he was recognized for that as a result of she was continuously utilizing her personal feces to hurl and to put in writing on jail partitions and to adorn herself.

And she or he was positioned in solitary for months and months on this stinking, fetid, feces-­lined cell. And on the skin world, it’s the squeaky wheel that will get the grease. In a spot like Rikers, the squeaky wheel will get shut down and shut up in a cell so deep that no person can hear the wheels squeak anymore.

HELEN TAYLOR, detained Nineteen Seventies, Nineteen Eighties: There was only a bathroom and a mattress, and also you was simply thrown in there, and also you took a bathe each different day for fifteen minutes. Your meals can be ice chilly, and the room was filthy. They allow you to clear it as soon as every week for fifteen minutes. All the pieces was fifteen minutes. You needed to lie there and be quiet, and when you weren’t, they might are available and beat the crap out of you. There was no TV. You get an hour of rec a day.

It was like they have been attempting to destroy individuals. You needed to be robust.

JACQUELINE McMICKENS, correction commissioner, 1984 to 1986: I’ve no issues with it in any respect. I believe some individuals should be off by themselves. That boy who decides he’s going to throw chairs? Put him in a room and watch him. You don’t go into Macy’s and Gimbels and take no matter you need. There’s a consequence.

DR. HOMER VENTERS, correctional well being providers chief medical officer, 2015 to 2017: We did this evaluation of about 250,000 jail admissions and got here up with very compelling knowledge that individuals uncovered to solitary had a few seven instances increased probability of self-­hurt and a few six instances increased probability of a high-­lethality self-­hurt.

DONOVAN DRAYTON, detained 2007 to 2012: It’s like being locked away, locked up and the important thing thrown away. It’s such as you in a little-­ass cell for twenty-­three hours a day, when you make rec for that one hour and it’s for x quantity of days. See, again then once I was going to the field, they used to have the ability to provide you with a yr, 100 days, 4 hundred.

It drives a loopy particular person loopy in a field, man. They arrive out a unique particular person. So now they’ve it set as much as the place you solely [have] thirty days a pop they usually take you out. They allow you to get it collectively a bit bit after which come snatch you and you perform a little bit extra time. However the field is simply brutal, man.

BARRY CAMPBELL, detained Nineteen Eighties, Nineties: My first time in solitary, I assumed that that is nothing. What’s all people speaking about? The primary time you’re in there for about perhaps half an hour, forty-­5 minutes, however that is nothing. And then you definately notice that you simply actually have nobody to speak to, that you simply actually are alone in that cell for twenty-­three hours. First I did a exercise routine till I couldn’t do it anymore. And then you definately sing and also you bang on the partitions too. You may’t do it anymore. After which ultimately you end up speaking to your self after which ultimately you end up counting the cockroaches that come by means of your doorways, or what number of instances you’re going to see a mouse in the present day. And also you stare out the window endlessly simply trying on the grass and leaves blowing within the winds. Folks go loopy in there.

DONOVAN DRAYTON: I cried. On the time once I went to the field, the place my cell was positioned, you can see the Triborough Bridge, and it was the best view and probably the most hurtful view on the similar time as a result of it was identical to, yo, I’ll by no means, ever go throughout this bridge once more a free man. Like the subsequent time, they could drive my casket again to my dad’s to bury me free.

KATHY MORSE, detained 2006: [W]e would obtain grievances from people who have been in solitary. And it was a dungeon. I assumed that the noise within the housing unit was surreal, however the noise in solitary was unbelievable. You had individuals banging on their partitions, simply screaming. It was so dangerous. It wasn’t even prefer it was a human being who was screaming. It was extra like an animal who was harm, screaming for assist.

KAREN SESSOMS, correction officer, 1991 to 1993: As a correction officer, this isn’t a spot the place you need to simply sit. You need to continuously stroll round. When you find yourself watching them, they’re watching you. You may hear issues being sharpened, normally weapons.

ELIAS HUSAMUDEEN, president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Affiliation, 2016 to 2020:Ninety-­9 p.c of the inmates by no means got here again as soon as they did their ten days, thirty days, fifty days. It just about helped in addressing the conduct that was unacceptable thirty years in the past and now. However the one p.c it didn’t work on is the place I imagine we failed. The definition of madness is to maintain on doing the identical factor again and again and anticipating a unique end result.

DONOVAN DRAYTON: It’s laborious, man. Simply being in a room with your self for therefore many days. It could actually drive you actually insane. You realize what, when you’re not mentally robust and mentally secure, it’ll change you. You see what occurred to Kalief Browder? You realize, he went to jail, he was mentally secure. He got here residence from jail, mentally shot. Rikers Island killed that man.

MICHAEL LOVE, detained early Nineteen Eighties, early Nineties: There was an [officer]. He got here to extract me. I wasn’t popping out. He grabbed me by my T-­shirt and pulled me so laborious it left a scar on my neck that I nonetheless have. He slammed me in opposition to the wall. He mentioned, “I’m going to interrupt your arm,” and I mentioned, “Go forward and break the [expletive].” It’s psychologically induced fatalism. You don’t care about penalties. That evening he took off all my garments, threw me in my cell, and left the window open. It was winter. That occurred most likely round ‘76 or ‘77. I used to be about eighteen.

BARRY CAMPBELL: [When you get out] it’s like being launched from jail, jail. Actually. If you happen to went in there for one thing substantial, whenever you come out, all people is like, “Boy, you’re a crazy-­ass dude.” You realize they gonna put you again quickly. And so there’s a sure repute that follows you when you went in there for one thing that was violent versus being caught with a pack of cigarettes. So whenever you come out, the general public, when you have been a violent particular person, the general public know what you went in there for. They get nervous whenever you come out.

From the ebook RIKERS: An Oral Historical past by Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau

Copyright © 2023 by Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau

Printed by association with Random Home, an imprint and division of Penguin Random Home LLC.