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Rikers : an oral history / Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Random House, [2023]Edition: First editionDescription: ix, 452 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
  • still image
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780593134214
  • 0593134214
Other title:
  • Oral history
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Prologue -- First day : "A city within a city" -- Linus : "There was no plan B" -- Bullpen therapy : "A life sentence, thirty days at a time" -- Race : "It's a different type of plantation mentality" -- Gangs : "Dude, that's a Latin King tattoo on his chest" -- Violence : "I've walked with the razor in my mouth" -- Solitary : "Nobody can hear the wheels squeak anymore" -- Mental health : "Cupcake gerbil face" -- Medical care : "Factory of despair" -- Pregnancy : "The house of pregnant girls" -- Food : "That's when I became a vegetarian" -- Contraband : "People made weapons out of bones" -- Minister : "We get our gun in" -- Riots : "All pandemonium broke loose" -- Escapes : "Ron, you couldn't pick a better name than John Hancock?" -- Cos : "When the music stops, you better have a seat" -- Teens : "They used to call it Vietnam or gladiator school" -- Celebrities : "Yo, could you listen to this for me?" -- LGBTQ : "They had what they called homosexual housing" -- Conditions : "Er, uh, uh, we need a plan - We'll be submitting a plan" -- Visitation : "A humiliation process" -- Death : "There were some rosaries and beads" -- Humanity : "When we lose the art of being human, we stop becoming" -- COVID-19 : "If this comes to Rikers, we're all screwed" -- Jacobson : "Nice Jewish boy winds up correction commissioner" -- Stats : "They sit down and put their little story together" -- Unions : "Serious violence is routinized" -- Close Rikers : "Executive summary : damned if I know" -- Last day : "Don't ever look back or else you'll come back" -- After Rikers -- Note to readers -- Acknowledgments -- Credits -- Index.
Summary: "What happens when you jam almost a dozen jails, bulging at the seams with society's cast-offs, onto a spit of landfill, purposefully hidden from public view and named after the family of a judge who sent escaped slaves and free Black men to plantations in the South? Prize-winning journalists Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau have spent two years interviewing more than 130 people comprising a broad cross-section of lives Rikers has touched-from detainees and their relatives to officers, lawyers, and commissioners, with stories spanning from the 1970s to the present day. The deeply personal accounts that emerge call into question the very nature of justice in America. Offering a 360-degree view inside the country's largest detention complex for the first time, their voices take readers on a harrowing journey into every corner of Rikers--a failed society unto itself that reflects society's failings as a whole"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 365.9747 R267 Available 33111010961726
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE . A shocking, groundbreaking oral history of the infamous Rikers jail complex and an unflinching portrait of injustice and resilience told by the people whose lives have been forever altered by it

"This mesmerizing and gut-wrenching book shows the brutal realities that tens of thousands of people have been forced to navigate, and survive, in America's most notorious jail. " -Piper Kerman, New York Times bestselling author of Orange is the New Black

What happens when you pack almost a dozen jails, bulging at the seams with society's cast-offs, onto a spit of landfill purposefully hidden from public view? Prize-winning journalists Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau have spent two years interviewing more than 130 people comprising a broad cross section of lives touched by New York City's Rikers Island prison complex-from incarcerated people and their relatives, to officers, lawyers, and commissioners, with stories spanning the 1970s to the present day. The portrait that emerges calls into question the very nature of justice in America.

Offering a 360-degree view inside the country's largest detention complex, the deeply personal accounts-featured here for the first time-take readers on a harrowing journey into every corner of Rikers, a failed society unto itself that reflects society's failings as a whole.

Dr. Homer Venters was shocked by the screams on his first day working at Rikers- "They're in solitary, just yelling... the yelling literally never stops." After a few months, though, Dr. Venters notes, one's ears adjust to the sounds. Nestor Eversley recalls how detainees made weapons from bones. Barry Campbell recalls hiding a razor blade in his mouth-"just in case".

These are visceral stories of despair, brutality, resilience, humor, and hope, told by the people who were marooned on the island over the course of decades. As calls to shutter jails and reduce the number of incarcerated people grow louder across the country, with the movement to close the island complex itself at the forefront, Rikers is a resounding lesson about the human consequences of the incarceration industry.

Includes index.

Prologue -- First day : "A city within a city" -- Linus : "There was no plan B" -- Bullpen therapy : "A life sentence, thirty days at a time" -- Race : "It's a different type of plantation mentality" -- Gangs : "Dude, that's a Latin King tattoo on his chest" -- Violence : "I've walked with the razor in my mouth" -- Solitary : "Nobody can hear the wheels squeak anymore" -- Mental health : "Cupcake gerbil face" -- Medical care : "Factory of despair" -- Pregnancy : "The house of pregnant girls" -- Food : "That's when I became a vegetarian" -- Contraband : "People made weapons out of bones" -- Minister : "We get our gun in" -- Riots : "All pandemonium broke loose" -- Escapes : "Ron, you couldn't pick a better name than John Hancock?" -- Cos : "When the music stops, you better have a seat" -- Teens : "They used to call it Vietnam or gladiator school" -- Celebrities : "Yo, could you listen to this for me?" -- LGBTQ : "They had what they called homosexual housing" -- Conditions : "Er, uh, uh, we need a plan - We'll be submitting a plan" -- Visitation : "A humiliation process" -- Death : "There were some rosaries and beads" -- Humanity : "When we lose the art of being human, we stop becoming" -- COVID-19 : "If this comes to Rikers, we're all screwed" -- Jacobson : "Nice Jewish boy winds up correction commissioner" -- Stats : "They sit down and put their little story together" -- Unions : "Serious violence is routinized" -- Close Rikers : "Executive summary : damned if I know" -- Last day : "Don't ever look back or else you'll come back" -- After Rikers -- Note to readers -- Acknowledgments -- Credits -- Index.

"What happens when you jam almost a dozen jails, bulging at the seams with society's cast-offs, onto a spit of landfill, purposefully hidden from public view and named after the family of a judge who sent escaped slaves and free Black men to plantations in the South? Prize-winning journalists Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau have spent two years interviewing more than 130 people comprising a broad cross-section of lives Rikers has touched-from detainees and their relatives to officers, lawyers, and commissioners, with stories spanning from the 1970s to the present day. The deeply personal accounts that emerge call into question the very nature of justice in America. Offering a 360-degree view inside the country's largest detention complex for the first time, their voices take readers on a harrowing journey into every corner of Rikers--a failed society unto itself that reflects society's failings as a whole"-- Provided by publisher.

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