Voices of Loved Ones of Prisoners at Rikers
October 31, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
As the report from a reader in the wake of the “perfect storm” noted, “In New York City ‘stop-and-frisk’ serves as a pipeline to the prisons, with the prison on New York City’s Rikers Island a big cog in the mass incarceration machinery.” Here are what some loved ones of prisoners at Rikers and a former prisoner had to say after the hurricane.
From Luz and Linda, Latinas in their late ‘30s: “I heard Bloomberg the other day talk about the prisoners at Rikers, he said ‘Oh don’t worry, they’re not going to escape’ – some crazy stupid shit like that, instead of asking if they’re going to be okay, he’s worried about if they’re going to escape. That’s pretty stupid. Me and her have been here four times since Monday, including twice yesterday and each time they tellin us ‘the system is down,’ and we’re coming from the Bronx; they don’t have the computers runnin or something. And each time we have to wait three hours to get off, after being told each time that we should come, only to be told we can’t help you. And this is besides my daughter’s husband coming last night and they told him the same thing. He couldn’t bail her out. You mean to tell me that if computers go down you don’t have any way to get people out who need to be bailed out? You see they have their own system here. And it’s funny ‘cause they know how to track everyone else out there with their technology.
“So here it is: I’m not able to bail my daughter out; she was an innocent bystander and she was trying to break up a fight and they give her $500 bail for that, it’s ridiculous, and she ends up here. It’s ridiculous. And she has a baby that’s one year old. And she’s treated like she’s guilty. She needs to get out of here, and they need to fix this service fast. Do you know that these last four days they didn’t have any commissary working? So she couldn’t get any stuff except for the food they give you. You also need to know that we don’t have the means for this. Realize we are coming from the Bronx by car finally where we have to pay the toll to try to bail her out four times. In the news – that whack-ass media – their concern is with the very rich downtown. We are nobodies. You have to understand how people get caught up. In this world now; in this country you are guilty until you are proven innocent if you are poor, and they are treating us like we’re criminals. When you look on the news, you don’t hear nothing about poor people and what they’re going through with this hurricane. The news just covers the rich, and I’m sorry, if you’re Black or Brown, you’re not going to get your story told. And because the courts are not working [the courts haven’t opened up yet] with this hurricane goin on, nobody could be bailed out. But they will get their police departments open and arresting people like they’re doin in the Rockaways. They will tell you all about that.”
“And [her daughter] is like so many others – they’re just guilty, and they don’t think about them again. Even if you try to be a good citizen, you can’t. That’s what people don’t understand.”
Margaret, Black, in her ‘40s: “They treat us like we’re animals. To them we’re just animals. People on the inside need just as much help as people on the outside. I’m visiting my son in here. He has a problem with alcohol, and he hits when he’s drunk. He needs help, not jail. They should put him inside of a program or something to help him, not punish him. Why you put somebody in jail if they’re an alcoholic. For my son and everybody else here at Rikers: can you afford a good lawyer for 5 or 6 thousand dollars? You can’t. And they know you can’t. Instead they give you someone who they appoint, and what do you expect if they are with [the courts]? They in cahoots; they’re like family. They all know each other…
“You should know about my son: that because he is a little slow, he is always picked on for stop-and-frisk.”
Margaret enacts a whole scenario for us of what her son goes through when he is stopped and frisked: “They stop him and he says ‘you got to call my mother.’ They ask ‘what do we have to call your mother for? You’re a grown man.’ ‘What’s in your pockets? Why do you look guilty?’ And why? Because he is 25 years old and he looks like he’s doin something wrong. He’s 25 years old and they don’t know that he is slow. Like I said, he needs help. And you know another thing? They go by your address and keep pressuring on you. And they keep the pressure on certain neighborhoods. So you’re guilty for living in these neighborhoods.
Junior, Puerto Rican, about 21 years old, who spent a week inside: “Pretty much, like I was saying – Rikers – they don’t treat people fair and the service sucks. There are a lot of people in here who are innocent and people outside don’t know this. The news is just leaving us out of it. I feel like they’re not even worried about us. We live life how it comes. We struggle. And sometimes people end up in the wrong place at the wrong times. You got to realize, I’m not high class, I’m low class. I was just in Rikers for some dumb shit. People who are in here who are innocent, it’s messed up. But even those who are guilty, it’s life; we kind of expect to be here. I just wished things were different, that people like us would be helped out more. They are not trying to help out the people in here at all. Let’s put it this way: people who are in here are either starving; they are freezing in the winter and hot in the summer time. It’s always a complaint. There shouldn’t be a complaint. If there wasn’t no complaints that means they’d be helping us.”
Talking about stop and frisk, Junior said that he was stopped six or seven times in three days. He is always stopped and frisked. “Where I live they assume you’re a hoodlum so they stop you.” He plays it out: “A cop tells you ‘get over here,’ and I ask him what did I do? You’re supposed to pull me over for a reason, not for nothing… Only did a week, but in here I ate the food, like a hot dog, it was raw, you bite into it and you break your teeth.”
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