An Oral History of Rikers Island

The New York Times, January 16, 2023: An Oral History of Rikers Island

“One of the takeaways of ‘Rikers: An Oral History,’ a new book by the journalists Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau, is the shock inmates feel upon entering this run-down and lawless prison for the first time. It’s not just the sense of peril, the reek of toilets and cramped quarters, and the nullity of the concept of presumption of innocence — it’s an awareness, as one interviewee puts it, that ‘nobody cared and nobody was watching.’

“Alongside that shock, the rapper Fat Joe tells the authors, is the awareness that, if you grew up in the projects and attended the public schools, you know this place. ‘I’m willing to bet that the same architect designed all three things,’ he says, having visited friends at the jail complex when he was growing up. ‘I’m telling you I was born in Rikers.’

“Rikers occupies a 415-acre island, most of it landfill, in the East River between Queens and the Bronx. If you take off from LaGuardia, there it is, right off to the left. It’s close but oddly far away. One skinny, terrifying bridge leads out to it — terrifying to prisoners, at any rate, because if your bus rolls into the river, as one detainee puts it, there’s little chance of survival when you’re in a cage and in shackles.

“It’s certainly far away for relatives and other loved ones. Visiting an inmate in Rikers is a degrading experience that often takes up an entire day, between the buses and the interminable waiting, even if your visit is an hour. A lot of people give up and stop making the trip.”

Additional reading:

Rikers: An Oral History by Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau on bookshop.org

Gothamist, January 24, 2023: Adams’ office snubs request for Rikers data from AOC and congressional Dems

The Atlantic, January 23, 2023: The Brutal Reality of Life in America’s Most Notorious Jail