On Rikers Island, A Move Toward Reform Causes Trouble
Reprinted with permission from ProPublica.
NEW YORK — On Rikers Island, in a cell block for the jail’s most violent inmates, young men sit for hours, feet shackled to “restraint desks.”
The school-like desks, outfitted with chains and locks, are located in specialized cell blocks called Enhanced Supervision Housing units. In the most secure levels, inmates who have committed violent infractions — caused injury to another inmate or guard, or attempted to stab or slash someone in jail — can leave their cells for a minimum of seven hours every day, but must be locked to the desks for much of that time.
Officials said they created the units as a more humane alternative to solitary confinement and that the units helped make Rikers the nation’s first jail to stop isolating young inmates. But a new report from the New York City Board of Correction suggests they may have traded one problematic practice for another.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/rikers-island-move-toward-reform-causes-trouble/
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