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Loading... Rikers: An Oral Historyby Graham Rayman
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"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"-- No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)365.9747275Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Penal & related institutions History, geographic treatment, biography North America Northeastern U.S. New YorkLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The stories in this book, all first-person accounts of time at Rikers, tell the larger story of a system that not only doesn't work but is designed to not work. Namely because it is designed to dehumanize and abuse those who often aren't even guilty and, regardless of that, are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Yet they are held for long periods, in abhorrent conditions, often for extended periods in solitary. This is AmeriKKKan justice.
Even if you don't support restorative justice (which would almost eliminate the need for jails and prisons) you should at least support rehabilitative justice. And what takes place at Rikers, and everywhere across the country, runs completely counter to that. This is a country that doesn't care about large portions of the population and is willing to take a person who may have committed an offense (remember the innocent until proven guilty thing?) and try to turn them into the monsters that the powers that be need them to be, all in order to keep the unfair "justice" system working to support an evil and immoral power class.
This volume is a moving tribute to those who faced this immoral and unethical monster and have survived, often to then find ways to help other victims of the "justice" system. If this doesn't make you want reform, then I don't want to know you, I prefer to keep inhuman monsters out of my life.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )