Rikers Island Civil Rights Violation Paper

In this summary response we are summarizing the article “On Punishment and Teen Killers”. In this article Jennifer Jenkins talks about her sister’s experience and how it was caused by a teenager. And what she is basically trying to make a claim on how teens do deserve to go to life sentences. But yet she does not have any experience since she is just a teacher.

Not one person, was created to be perfect beings, but children are pure and innocent and their mental and critical thinking skills are not fully developed and strong enough to handle adult prisons. On the other hand, children are most likely to vividly remember delinquent actions they performed whether it was done intentionally in a “heat of the moment” action such as Charlie’s case in Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy” or unintentionally due to peer-pressure or self-protection in most juveniles’ case. Moreover, the justice system is hypocritical to their own children, “Protect the young” but places the young in harm’s way. Children in adult prisons are prone to rape, suicide and assault than in juvenile detention centers according to studies on juvenile suicide in adult institutions and youth facilities in the1980’s. The studies indicated that “the suicide rate of juveniles in adult jails is 7.7 times more likely than of juvenile detention centers. In 1989, five times as many youth held in adult prisons answered yes to the question "has anyone attempted to sexually attack or rape you" than those held in juvenile institutions while about 10% of the youth interviewed reported a sexual attack, or rape attempt.(Zeidenberg).Another factor of why children should not be tried as adults is that youths are easily victimized and beaten up by inmates and most likely staff, they are also for example

In “Before The Law”, an article written by Jennifer Gonnerman published in The New Yorker, the dispiriting true story of a teen from the Bronx is used as a precedent to highlight the glaring problems with New York City’s criminal justice system. In May of 2010, sixteen year-old Kalief Browder and his friends were arrested on robbery charges after returning home from a party in the Bronx. The ensuing events led him in and out of holding cells, granted him a bail of three thousand dollars (which his family was unable to afford), and eventually led to him being transferred to the infamous Rikers Island; Where, despite never being convicted of any crime (let alone receiving a fair trial), he was imprisoned for nearly four years. Gonnerman

According to the Washington Post article written by Rachel Weiner, in April of 2015, a 24-year-old mentally ill man named Jamycheal Mitchell was accused of stealing in Portsmouth, Virginia. He was ordered by a judge to be sent to a psychiatric hospital. Meanwhile, he stayed in the Virginia jail, waiting for a bed to be appointed to him. Mitchell did not receive the proper or necessary care and was later found dead after 5 months of being incarcerated in the jail. It was observed that he had lost a shocking 36 pounds, which rose multiple questions concerning his health during his incarcerated period. This jail was under investigation for violating Mitchell’s rights and is greatly to blame for his death due to their poor supervision, lack of

Many juveniles who entered the juvenile justice system are victims themselves of parental mistreatment such as neglect, physical, and emotional abuse. Once children into the juvenile system and is labeled a juvenile similar to adults being labeled a felon. These young offenders are stigmatized as criminal with little distinction between adults and juvenile offenders entering the prison system for the first time. Bernstein (2014) paints a vivid picture of how incarcerated juveniles expose to a new set of challenges such as posttraumatic stress syndrome, curtailed education, gang affiliation, and a gladiator mentality. These challenges that can develop in juvenile facility has

(Puzzanchera, Adams, and Sickmund, 2011) While mental health issues are not always indicative that a juvenile will act out, a much higher percentage of juveniles involved in the juvenile justice system, an estimated 50-75% (based on conflicting data from multiple sources) of youth in juvenile detention facilities, have diagnosable, untreated mental disorders.

Out of all of the topics discussed in Module 5, Rivers Island had caught my attention. To the point that I decided to do my own extensive research on the topic. Jails in our criminal justice system are known to be corrupt and ruthless. After watching the video about Rikers Island, it concluded how corrupt our system is and why there is a desperate need for change. Rikers Island is the pure example of what most people would think every jail in America is like. The media has altered the vision of how jail and prison is like in America, but its crazy how Rikers Island is the exact image of the corruption.

In New York, 2010, Kalief Browder was arrested for allegedly committing a robbery that he said he did not commit. However, he was still charged with robbery, grand larceny, and assault. The judge set bail at three thousand dollars, an amount that Browder’s family could not pay and unfortunately, he was sent to Rikers Island where he spent over a thousand days. He was assaulted by officers, inmates, and was also constantly sent to solitary confinement for nearly two years during his time at Rikers Island (Gonnerman, 2014). Kalief Browder attempted suicide many times when he was in solitary confinement. After being released, he tried to get back on his feet within society. His case was heard by many people, including Barack Obama, Jay Z, and other well-known individuals. All of them spoke about the injustice Browder faced. However, on June 06, 2015, Browder committed suicide (Gonnerman, 2015). Many people believed that the criminal justice system failed Browder. Unfortunately, this is not the only case in which the outcome was heartbreaking.

Kalief Browder, born May 25, 1993 was a member of the Generation Y cohort. The generation Y cohort group can be defined as those born between 1980 and 1995. As stated in the Wiki article on Kalief Browder, Browder was only 16 years old at the time of his arrest and was in stage 5 Identity vs Role Confusion, of Erikson’s theory of social-emotional development. This stage occurs between the ages of 12 and 26. During this time, society expects adolescents to be responsible and are held accountable like adults. Though Browder did not commit the crime he was accused of he was held accountable like an adult and received the same punishments. Also noted, adolescents are beginning to define who they are by experimenting with various roles. During

Approximately 240,000 brutal rapes occur in our prison systems each year (Lozoff). Most of the victims are young, nonviolent male inmates, many of them teenaged first offenders. They are traumatized beyond imagination. Most of these inmates are nonviolent criminals who cannot or will not defend themselves. Unfortunately, this results in many of those nonviolent offenders turning violent by the time they leave prison.

Ashley Smith was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, and adopted when she was just a little girl. However, at the age of 13, she became very troubled and rebellious, constantly receiving suspensions at school for her impulsive behaviour, which even landed her in youth court several times. At age 15, Smith was convicted and sentenced to one-month incarceration at New Brunswick Youth Centre for throwing crab-apples at a postal worker. Within a few weeks of her sentence, Smith became aggressive towards the correctional staff and repeatedly destroyed her segregation cell. Her behavioral issues didn’t stop there, for instance, at times she threw urine and faecal matter at the guards. Due to Smith’s resistance, self-injurious behavior, and aggression towards the correctional guards, she accumulated several institutional infractions, which added 6-years to her original sentence of a month (DiManno 2012).

Fixing Rikers Island by Marlin F. Horn article discusses the current problem confronting our correctional facilities. Overcrowded jails are an issue that has been impacting the United States jail populace for a considerable length of time. The author illustrated assessment about this issue and furthermore gives some contrasting option to take care of the issues particularly Riker Island. As agreed by Marlin Horn (2015), “takes credit for bringing needed attention to conditions at the jails, calls for the appointment of a federal monitor and identifies the long time president of the collective bargaining agent for the Correction Officers as an impediment to reform”. I certainly concur with Marlin the present condition on Rikers Island should be settled. By not having the sufficient space and support to fulfill prisoner needs or recovery, this will bring about detainees leaving the prison system not ready for regular citizen life. Thus, this will ensure that previous detainee falling once again into the jail system expanding the congestion issue. “The buildings on Rikers Island are poorly designed, they were not built to last or to serve the purpose intended, and most certainly never designed to house a population that by some current

The environment in adult facilities is immensely different from juvenile facilities. Rehabilitation options are limited in adult facilities. It is hard for children to fit in with adults, or even be respected. Lack of attention and bullying are both major problems for juveniles in prison (Human Rights Watch). Juveniles in prison have a 18x greater risk of committing suicide, due to lack of supervision (Juvenile Forensic Evaluation Center) However, juvenile facilities provide higher quality education, adequate health care, and better security. 70% of juveniles are held under locked situations, rather than staff secure settings (Juvenile Forensic Evaluation Center). This decreases the amount of violence between juveniles and the staff. Since depression is a common health issue, juvenile facilities often have treatment available. Giving a juvenile the resources to help, can really benefit them at this

Valios(2006) begins her article by providing her readers with information about the large number of violent young offenders who are locked up in England, even though they have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness. She turns to the case of a young man named Robert Stewart, a violent racist who was serving time ina facility with an Asian teenager named ZahidMubarek. Valios(2006) summarizes a report that explains how Stewart killed Mubarek. She argues that there was plenty of evidence that Stewart was severely mentally ill, but that no psychiatric programs were available to treat his condition. As a result, Mubarekneedlessly died. Valios (2006) poses a good question: “How should we handle young people who are severely unwell but who have committed serious offenses?” (p. 31). She answers this question by advocating for better psychiatric evaluation and treatment of violent youth. Valios(2006) concludes her article by quoting from prison reformers and other experts who also want there to be separate facilities in England for violent offenders who are mentally ill and those who are serving time.

On May 10th, 2010, a 16-year-old high school sophomore was walking home from a party in the Bronx when he was stopped by the police for allegedly stealing a backpack with a camera, $700, a credit card, and an iPod. With his mom unable to make bail he was sent to one of the toughest prisons named Rikers Island. He was locked up for a crime he didn’t commit. His name is Kalief Browder. He spent over 1000 days in Riker’s Island and 700 of those days was in solitary confinement. President Obama was the president at the time, and he banned solitary confinement for juveniles. He stated, “it could lead to devastating, lasting psychological consequences” (Shear, 2016). Which is what ended up happening to Kalief. Rikers inmates and most correctional officers had a program, the program included giving up your commissary, phone calls, and if you were with it, you were considered a punk and if you weren’t you were jumped daily. Browder wasn’t with it, so he was jumped on a regular basis, and the COs’ allowed it. There was one incident where Kalief was on the phone with his mother, and 8 to 9 guys jumped him with his mother, still on the phone. Kalief was also tortured by officers, they would starve him, they wouldn’t allow him to shower, they would even give him food that was half eaten or poisoned, and sometimes they would leave him in his cell for 24 hours. He had over 30 court dates, but the courts were never ready for trial. He felt like the system was playing with his life. He