A loose brotherhood of prisoners came together to share knowledge on how to prove their innocence. It took decades, but it worked. Source: New York Times
Posts published in “Prisons and Prisoners”
How a Race-Based Medical Formula Is Keeping Some Black Men in Prison
By Gotham Rex on April 22, 2022
The formula, which helps estimate kidney health, has been discarded by many hospitals. But some judges still use it to decide whether to release those potentially endangered by Covid-19. Source: New York Times
Rikers Chaos Could Lead to Federal Court Control, U.S. Attorney Says
By Gotham Rex on April 19, 2022
Damian Williams wrote that his office might have no choice but to seek “aggressive relief” for the serious problems at the jail. Source: New York Times
Dominic Taddeo, Escaped Mob Hit Man, Is Recaptured in Florida
By Gotham Rex on April 5, 2022
The apprehension of Dominic Taddeo, a notorious hit man from New York, came a week after he failed to return from a medical appointment to his halfway house in Florida. Source: New York Times
Rikers Still ‘Unstable and Unsafe’ Under New Jails Chief, Watchdog Says
By Gotham Rex on March 17, 2022
A federal monitor overseeing reforms at the troubled New York City jail complex said staffing problems and high rates of violence persist. Source: New York Times
‘Hart Island’ Gives Voice to Stories That Might Otherwise Be Lost
By Gotham Rex on March 16, 2022
Tracy Weller’s new multimedia theater piece focuses on those buried in New York City’s potter’s field and the inmates who dug the graves there. Source: New York Times
50 Years Ago, James Brown Took an Unlikely Stage: Rikers Island
By Gotham Rex on March 15, 2022
The story of how the Godfather of Soul ended up performing at the New York jail involves a dogged Board of Correction employee who knitted her way to the musician’s attention. Source: New York Times
Unreported Rikers Island Beatings: ‘Disturbing and Unacceptable’
By Gotham Rex on March 8, 2022
Louis Molina, the correction commissioner, responded to a recent New York Times report that found serious injuries to at least two detainees were not reported. Source: New York Times
How Brutal Beatings on Rikers Island Were Hidden From Public View
By Gotham Rex on March 2, 2022
One man was paralyzed from the neck down. Another landed in a coma. Neither injury was documented properly in the New York City jail system awash in disorder. Source: New York Times
A Fall From the Society Pages to Prison Unsettles Greenwich
By Gotham Rex on February 18, 2022
The sealing of the case against Hadley Palmer, 53, who must register as a sex offender for secretly filming minors, has revived questions about judicial favoritism for the wealthy. Lawyers say they were trying to protect her victims. Source: New…
Jail Unions Gain a Powerful Supporter: Mayor Eric Adams
By Gotham Rex on January 14, 2022
Eric Adams has reversed some measures enacted to regain control over the crisis at Rikers Island, in an early victory for the correction officers’ unions. Source: New York Times
Hundreds at Rikers Protest Conditions, Citing Covid and the Cold
By Gotham Rex on January 11, 2022
Detainees in one jail at the Rikers Island complex are refusing to eat Correction Department meals. Source: New York Times
N.Y. Prisons Punished 1,600 Based on Faulty Drug Tests, Report Finds
By Gotham Rex on January 4, 2022
Incarcerated people were subjected to solitary confinement and denied family visits because of improperly administered tests, the state inspector general found. Source: New York Times
Behind the Violence at Rikers, Decades of Mismanagement and Dysfunction
By Gotham Rex on December 31, 2021
For years, New York City officials have presided over shortcuts and blunders that have led to chaos in one of America’s most expensive jail complexes. Source: New York Times
Covid Cases Spike in New York City Jails
By Gotham Rex on December 22, 2021
“The risks to the human beings in our custody are at a crisis level,” the correction commissioner wrote in a letter to lawyers and judges. Source: New York Times