After 25 years, freedom and nerves

And with the turn of a key, everything changed.
Stanley Butts walked out of Cayuga Correctional Facility April 11, a free man for the first time since his 1987 conviction on robbery charges in Cortland and Tompkins counties.
He carried $40 and his Social Security card in his pocket and a canvas bag of clothes over his shoulder. Another inmate had given him a pack of Marlboros before he left.
He was wearing his lucky yellow shirt.
Correctional officers processed him out and hustled him into a green prison van that went careening up Route 41A, through Skaneateles and down Route 690 to the bustling Syracuse bus station.
The van stopped, and when Butts stepped out it drove away.
No one was watching. That was it. Freedom.
“I’ve been doing this 25 years, one day at a time,” he said.“But right now it’s all in slow motion. It’s a whole new world.”
•••
A released inmate’s first responsibility upon release is to check in with his parole officer at a regional field office.
For those released from Auburn and Cayuga correctional facility, the nearest field office is in Syracuse. That means that many newly released inmates’ first day of freedom is spent studying bus schedules and finding their way in an unfamiliar place.
Butts, for instance, was released from CCF to Cortland, but he still had to go to Syracuse first.
The prison van dropped him off at the main bus terminal, leaving him to catch a city bus to the parole office 2.5 miles away.
After that appointment, he had to catch the same bus back to the terminal in time for a Greyhound bus down to Cortland.
There, he would sign up for social services benefits and, late in the afternoon, find out where he’d spend his first night outside a cell.
A spokeswoman with the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision defended the complicated travel arrangement, calling it “a policy question” and saying it was the parolee’s responsibility to get to appointments.
“Mr. Butts agreed to live in Cortland prior to being released, knowing he’d have to report to Syracuse (the first day),” the spokeswoman, Carole Weaver, said. “The choice was made by Mr. Butts.”
At the bus terminal, Butts turned right toward the Greyhound bus window, where he cashed in a voucher for a ticket to Cortland later in the day.
The woman behind the desk offered to hold his canvas bag while he was gone. He got a cup of coffee to make change and stared, perplexed, at the bills he got back.
“This looks like Monopoly money,” he said. “Are you sure this is real? What happened to good old-fashioned greenbacks?”
Back outside, a storm was ready to break from the overcast sky. City buses pulled in and out, in and out, the bus he needed not among them.
Butts paced and smoked, squinting to see the numbers on the buses as they came down the lane.
“My stomach’s doing flitter-flatters, man,” he said. “I don’t look out of place? I look like a regular Joe?”
Finally it came, 20 minutes late, and he boarded with a hesitant nod to the driver before settling into a seat toward the back.
The bus jerked into motion and the wind blew through a vent. Butts grinned.
“It seems like a bad dream,” he said. “I woke up after 25 years and I’m back in the real world.”

***
The key to a successful reintegration is a detailed plan of how to do it.
Jim Haid, executive director of Peace Prints Prison Ministries in Buffalo, said too many inmates leave prison without a firm idea of what they’ll do in the weeks and months ahead.
“Rather than just catching the Greyhound bus to wherever, it’s helpful to have a plan set in place, and a plan that’s going to support them in having some direction and finding the services they need,” he said. “Otherwise, they’re just going to fall back into the same old habits.”
The three most important aspects of such a plan are housing, work and support programs, he said.
Peace Prints, a non-profit organization that houses about 35 released prisoners in Erie County, provides those services and sends volunteers into Orleans Correctional Facility to help people before they hit the street.
What most guys need when they’re released is some solid footing,” Haid said. “The world is different from when they first went in, no matter how much time they spent.”
A failure -- or inability -- to handle that process sends thousands of men and women back to prison each year, often for avoidable parole violations.
Of the 24,921 people released from New York prisons between 2004 and 2007, nearly 40 percent found themselves back behind bars within three years, according to a study by the Pew Center on the States.
That is 22nd among the 41 states included in the study, and slightly lower than the national average of 43 percent.
About three fourths of those New Yorkers were recommitted for a parole violation rather than a new crime, the study showed.

***
Butts did not look like a regular Joe in downtown Syracuse.
He stepped carefully, eyeing traffic with suspicion and checking at every intersection to make sure he hadn’t lost his way to the parole office.
“There’s a lot of jaywalkers in this town,” he said.
He found the building and went inside for a 90-minute interview, his first contact with parole outside prison.
They filled out forms, photographed his tattoos and laid down the law: no leaving his residence between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. No drugs, no alcohol. No weapons, no hunting, no driving without permission.
Outside, there was music in Clinton Square and a group of children slapping a rubber street hockey ball back and forth across the blacktop.
Butts retraced his way to the bus terminal -- this time, more confidently -- and fetched his duffel bag from behind the counter.
He hadn’t eaten all day; the thought didn’t seem to cross his mind.
The bus to Cortland was about to depart. There, he was to check in with the Department of Social Services; his first regular parole meeting was scheduled for 8 a.m. the following Monday.
“I left all the animosity behind at Cayuga,” he said. “Now it’s stepping forward, getting my life back a little bit at a time. That’s all I can do.”

Staff writer Justin Murphy can be reached at 282-2237 orjustin.murphy@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter at CitizenMurphy.


Read more: http://auburnpub.com/news/local/article_7db6395e-0e75-11e1-8f79-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1dggOkiGt

Elected officials found Rikers library for moms

State Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera (l.) and City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras show off books to be given to Rikers Island so incarcerated women can read to their children.

By Rebecca Henely

TimesLedger Newspapers

 

 

City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst) and state Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera (D-Bronx) announced last week that they are collecting children’s books for female prisoners in Rikers Island and women’s facilities upstate to read to their children.
“We cannot wait until they are released to reintegrate them with their children,” Ferreras said.
The drive, which is still ongoing, was the brainchild of both lawmakers. Rivera said she and Ferreras were at a mutual friend’s house for a barbecue and began discussing the subject of mothers in prison.
Their talk lasted two hours, and by Oct. 26 they had hundreds of books to donate to Rikers as well as three women’s prisons upstate.
“We have women who are mothers who are not being given the additional support they need to be reunited with their child,” Rivera said.
Ferreras and Rivera visited Rikers after the announcement.
A fact sheet from the Correctional Association of New York, a Manhattan nonprofit with authority from the state Legislature to monitor prison conditions, said about 73 percent of New York’s incarcerated women are mothers, compared to 58 percent of men in prison who are fathers.
The association also said 83 percent of women were sent to prison in 2008 for non-violent offenses and 35 percent of women in prison read at an eighth-grade level or below.
“We just learned that Rikers does not have a library for these women,” Rivera said.
The assemblywoman said children’s books at the prison would encourage bonding activity and promote adult literacy.
“This is the one opportunity that a mother may have, even though she’s being detained, to be taken somewhere else,” Ferreras said.
In addition to the Correctional Association, Ferreras said she and Rivera have been working on this project with other nonprofits, such as the Osborne Association and the Jewish Board of Family & Children Services.
“Books are a powerful way to strengthen the parent-child relationship while nurturing a child’s love of learning,” Tanya Krupta, of the Osborne Association, said in a statement. “No matter what the literacy level or language of the mother, she can animate, narrate, cuddle and laugh with her child through a book.”
Rivera has also introduced legislation calling for female inmates to be placed in correctional facilities closest to their homes.
Ferreras said she is still collecting children’s books to be donated to Rikers Island. Books to be donated must be softcover for easier storage. They can be dropped off at the councilwoman’s district office at 32-33 Junction Blvd. in East Elmhurst.

City Must Stand Trial for Discrimination at Rikers

By ADAM KLASFELD

 Five female prison guards who say that male supervisors at Rikers Island demand sexual favors for better shifts, hurl racist abuse at roll call and litter their posts with urine-filled bottles will have their day in court against New York City, a federal judge ruled.
In a phone interview, plaintiff attorney Susan Egan said that top prison officials helped create the "man's world" at Rikers Island, including Deputy Chief Carmine LaBruzzo and disgraced former Correction Chief Peter Curcio, who stepped down from his post following revelations that he signed off on a bar mitzvah inside the Manhattan Detention Center (a.k.a. the "Tombs").
In December 2004, Deputy Warden Raphael Olivo allegedly gave plaintiff M.M. a basket of skin lotions, and then visited her post nearly "every morning" to talk about putting them on her. She says he pinned her to the wall, tried to kiss her, undressed in front of her, and made her sit on his lap while removing his pants.
Another plaintiff, E.M., says that Deputy Warden Jose Matos told her to enter his office, while he was naked down to the waist and his zipper was lowered. Even though inmates corroborated her story, Matos was not disciplined and later retired, court documents state.
The plaintiffs say that Equal Employment Opportunity office does not investigate complaints about incidents that have no witnesses, which allows most bias claims to get swept under the rug.
In 2006, an Equal Employment Opportunity report revealed that 112 race discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment claims were filed that year, and only five were substantiated.
According to court documents, an unnamed Deputy Director of the EEO acknowledged that legitimate discrimination complaints were being dismissed.
"[T]here could have been something that was-we thought was so horrific or something that was so specific that it probably did happen, but because the standard was you had to have [corroboration]... we could not substantiate the complaint," the director said. "And that's generally what would happen."
The June 8, 2007 lawsuit catalogues "general allegations of [a] racist and sexist environment" at Rikers Island, which never resulted in discipline.
During one roll call, Curcio and Deputy Warden Robert Cripps allegedly announced that corrections officers should refer to them as "daddy" and "uncle" and should "dance to the drum beat of their masters."
Egan said that former chief Curcio was oblivious about the offensiveness of his announcement.
"The room was filled when he said it, and there were a couple of complaints," Egan told Courthouse News. "He simply did not understand why what he said was troublesome."
At a black guard's funeral, unnamed white officers allegedly joked that the deceased officer should be buried "like slaves were."
Captain Matthew Boyd allegedly told one black, female guard to "kiss his lily white ass."
Even the bathroom policy at Rikers Island discriminated against women, the plaintiffs say.
Officially, a guard cannot leave a post until another corrections officer steps in for relief, and the city insists that the wait time did not last longer than 15 minutes.
In her deposition, though, plaintiff Beatrice Adams said that the wait time depended on "if the relieving officer likes you," and men avoided the wait time by urinating into bottles that they left littered around their posts.
Although the lawsuit involves alleged discrimination between 2001 and 2007, Adams said that - about a year after she filed the complaint - she developed a medical condition, and guards left her waiting for the bathroom so long that she urinated herself.
On Thursday, Senior U.S. District Judge Frederic Block ruled that the guards' hostile work environment claims are ready for a jury.
"There are issues of fact regarding whether derogatory comments by supervisors and the bathroom policy at Rikers were so severe as to create a pervasive hostile work environment and whether Olivo's treatment of Monche was so severe and pervasive that it resulted in a hostile work environment that interfered with her conditions of employment," Block wrote.
In addition, M.M. can pursue her sexual harassment claim; four plaintiffs can press retaliation charges; and the city must defend itself against "Monell" claims, named after a 1978 case that first established local government accountability for unconstitutional acts.
These claims will hinge on "whether the EEO corroboration policy caused those violations because supervisors believed they could harass subordinates with impunity" and "whether the City was deliberately indifferent to the need," the ruling states.
An attorney for the guards' blasted the "miserable" work environment of female guards in a statement.
"Judge Block got it. DOC is a miserable place for women to work," Egan wrote. "My clients are looking forward to demonstrating to a jury just how miserable male supervisors can make the life of women at DOC who have the temerity to stand up for their rights."
Lawyers for New York City declined to comment

New York City covets cells at soon-to-shut state prison on Staten Island

By Judy L. RandallStaten Island Advance

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Is Staten Island about to become Rikers Island West?
The city is considering sending “overflow” inmates from Rikers Island jails to the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility when the state vacates the medium-security prison on Dec. 1.
But Borough President James Molinaro told the Advance yesterday he won’t stand for it.
What’s more, he said he already knows of “someone” who is interested in the “purchase or lease” of the state prison property in Charleston and will retrofit it as a “retail shopping center.”
“It will create jobs and a tax base,” said Molinaro. “That is what we need.”
Molinaro declined to say who the well-heeled honcho is, only that it is not a big-box developer.
“He would be willing to start tomorrow if he could,” said Molinaro of a time line.
Molinaro said he has already “expressed opposition” to a possible state-city jail swap to the Cuomo administration, which tabbed the Island facility for closure earlier this year as a cost-cutting measure. He declined to say how he learned of the possibility.
This amid rumblings that were picked up by workers at the prison — along with rumors heard by other elected officials here — that the city is looking to take over Arthur Kill once the state moves out.
Arthur Kill workers said city officials toured the prison on Sept. 9 to look the place over.
City Correction Department spokeswoman Sharman Stein would say only, “We took a look at the Arthur Kill facility solely for information purposes.” She would not answer a question about Rikers overflow coming here.
State Department of Correctional Services spokesman Peter Cutler declined to answer a question about future use of Arthur Kill.
Meanwhile, late yesterday, the borough’s Republican elected officials — save for state Sen. Andrew Lanza — inked a letter to a bevy of state commissioners asking that “no consideration be given to use the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility as a city-run correctional facility.”
“The community we represent as a whole would not support such a move and are vehemently opposed to converting a state prison facility into any city-run penitentiary or prison. It remains our hope that Arthur Kill would be eligible for a portion of the $50 million in capital funding provided under the [state] Economic Transformation and Facility Redevelopment Program in order to redevelop the area to spur economic growth, diversify the local economy and create new jobs to help get New Yorkers back to work.”
The letter was signed by City Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore); Assemblyman Lou Tobacco (R-South Shore); Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn); Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-East Shore/Brooklyn), and Rep. Michael Grimm (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn).
As for Lanza, who wants to keep Arthur Kill as is, he said he has “been hearing rumors” of a possible city takeover and predicted crime will escalate in the community should the city decide to house part of its short-term jail population here.
Lanza (R-Staten Island) said his experience as a former prosecutor tells him the prospect of a jail abutting a residential community, where prisoners have the ability to make bail after brief periods of incarceration, is a “real concern.”
“There is a different culture between someone with a termed sentence serving it in a state prison than someone jailed for a year or less and who can come and go as they make bail,” said Lanza. “Around city facilities, you have higher crime rates.”
An Arthur Kill correction officer, who asked that his name not be used, said Lanza is right.
“There is a reason why Rikers Island is an island,” said the officer, who has 18 years on the job and has not yet put in for a transfer.
Rikers sits in the East River, between Queens and the Bronx.
But state Sen. Diane Savino, who said she “grew up in the shadow of Rikers Island” in Queens, said, “I would not be concerned that it would make the community less safe.”
“Is it possible the city might have a use for it?” asked Ms. Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn), who like Lanza wants to keep Arthur Kill in state prison hands. “They are always complaining about Rikers and other city facilities and overcrowding.”
Meanwhile, the state is moving forward with shutting down Arthur Kill. State spokesman Cutler said the department’s human resources staff will be on site Monday and Tuesday to talk to remaining personnel who have not yet submitted transfers.
Cutler said 212 security staff and 99 civilian staff members remain at Arthur Kill, along with 277 offenders. Arthur Kill has a prisoner bed capacity of 991.
He said that on Aug. 15, 72 security staff members were reassigned to other prison facilities based on seniority and available vacancies.
One clerical worker who spoke to the Advance said yesterday she has been on the job at Arthur Kill for 19 years at a salary of around $30,000.
“I am beside myself,” said the Great Kills woman, who asked not to be named. “What do I do? I am not ready to retire. I have a mortgage. I have college to pay for. Between the bridge tolls and the Thruway tolls and the gas, I can’t afford to go anywhere. But I need a job and I need health care.”
Lanza called it “very troubling if discussions are going on” about future uses of Arthur Kill without involving “all of the stakeholders.”
He also repeated his call to Gov. Andrew Cuomo to personally visit the site with him.

Insights: Attica, 40 years later: A reporter’s perspective

          Forty years ago, on Monday, Sept. 13, 1971, my assignment was to cover the Attica Prison rebellion, which had started the Thursday before when rampaging inmates took 38 guards and civilian employees hostage in a spasm of violence that simmers to this day in rural, Western New York.
I was a 30-year-old reporter at WOKR-TV Channel 13, an ABC affiliate in Rochester. The situation at Attica Prison had been deteriorating all summer, with inmates angry over conditions they found infuriating: one roll of toilet paper per man per month; only one shower per week; no religious services for Black Muslims; an over-abundance of pork at both noon and evening meals; and assembly in the prison yard by more than three Muslims punishable by a stretch in solitary confinement.

These and other grievances had been presented to New York State Corrections Commissioner Russell G. Oswald on July 2 of that summer, but nothing had been done about any of the complaints when frustrated inmates took matters into their own hands the morning of Sept. 9, breaking down a key internal gate, taking over two cellblocks and shops, and setting up camp in an outside area known as D-yard.

In the four days that the inmates occupied and controlled the area, three prisoners were murdered, correctional officer William Quinn died of injuries suffered in the first minutes of the uprising, and several guards were beaten, some seriously. But almost immediately, the guards were then isolated and protected by the rebelling inmates, and tense negotiations with prison officials began.
The inmates had 31 demands on their list, including amnesty. All but three of the demands were said to have already been agreed to by Oswald, but many of the prisoners feared he would break his word and not meet with them as promised. The previous November, at a correctional facility in Auburn, N.Y., a prisoners’ request for permission to hold a Black Solidarity Day observation had been denied. A sit-down strike ensued, several guards were captured, then released when officials promised no reprisals. But those promises were almost immediately abandoned, and retribution, including beatings, solitary confinement, and transfers to other prisons, were enacted. At Attica that fateful September, Oswald’s perceived betrayal weighed heavily on the rebelling inmates’minds.
Coverage of the uprising had been front-page news for weeks, and had led the news daily on every television and radio station in the state. The story was huge, and getting bigger by the hour. Journalists were showing up from Europe, and network requests for footage and stories were escalating. The Attica Prison rebellion had become international news.
As photographer Joe Paladino and I headed south on Route 98 towards the prison that dreary morning, nervous and not talking much, the unmistakable sound of gunfire suddenly erupted from our police scanner. With the barrage came the whirring sound of a helicopter, and a firm order shouted over a loudspeaker: “This is the State Police! Put your hands in the air — you will not be harmed! Repeat! Put your hands over your head, put down your weapons, do exactly as you are told! You will not be harmed!”

Within seconds we were rocketing down that country road at 90, making it through the outside perimeter gates just as they were swung closed. Helicopters whirred overhead as gunfire crackled, and clouds of tear gas wafted over the walls, sending photographers and reporters scrambling and choking. Then came the interminable wait for official word of what had gone on inside. In my case, that explanation came from Monroe County Undersheriff Andy Meloni, who emerged from the prison ashen-faced and somber. “There are over 20 dead inmates,” he said to me. “Were any of the hostages killed?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “Their throats were cut.” And that night, on WOKR-TV Channel 13 and elsewhere, including The New York Times, that’s the way the story was reported.
But the very next day, Monroe County medical examiner and pathologist Dr. John Edland announced to a virtual horde of reporters that none of the hostages had died of a cut throat, that all had perished as a result of bullets fired by police and corrections officers. Reporters were incredulous. There was a rush to the phones like in the movies, and soon all the world knew what had really happened the day before. In all, there were 39 killed in the Monday uprising, 29 inmates and 10 hostages. Over the four days of the uprising, the total was 43 dead. And Dr. Edland was soon the target of many attempts to discredit both his findings and his politics.
What followed was a huge investigation, then another, and a series of hearings, trials, lawsuits and rulings that went on for years. Finally, in 1976, then-governor Hugh Carey ended the legal morass by terminating the grand jury that had taken up the police and corrections officer felony charges, and called a halt to all criminal prosecutions. On Aug. 28, 2000, 502 claims were approved by Federal Court Judge Michael Telesca in Rochester, and the monetary awards for inmates killed or injured in the rebellion ranged from $6,500 to $125,000, depending on the severity of the injuries and the amount of suffering endured. There were no awards for the families of the slain and injured corrections officers.
In the four decades since the Attica rebellion, the number of people incarcerated nationwide has skyrocketed. In addition, prisons have become big business, especially in California, where the political clout of the unions representing the corrections officers is undeniable, and their pension system all but impossible for state taxpayers to maintain. And as the drug wars continue, so do the arrests and convictions, filling our prisons to two and three times their capacities. Many are openly run by gangs, virtually awash with drugs, and seething with anger. Few places inside are safe, and horrific injuries and violent deaths are commonplace — the grim statistics of a flawed system in serious need of major reform.
Have the hard lessons of Attica been forgotten? Is a repeat of that 40-year-old tragedy possible here in California, or wherever large numbers of men are serving time in similar conditions? Hard to say, but desperate men have been known to do desperate things, in spite of the consequences — what happened at Attica in September of 1971 proved that beyond any doubt. But if I had to guess, based on my own experience with the original event, I think I’d put it this way: Without significant changes, it’s just a matter of time, and those who are doing it.

Twitter Rages as NY Announces No Evacuation Plan for Rikers - COLORLINES

Twitter Rages as NY Announces No Evacuation Plan for Rikers - COLORLINES

No Evacuation for Rikers Island

Look at the city's official hurricane evacuation map and you'll see that pretty much every island and coastal zone is classified as either a Zone A, B, or C. All except one, really. The sort of big one right next to LaGuardia Airport. You know, the one that's covered in prison buildings and houses some 12,000 inmates. Turns out the city's Department of Corrections has literally no evacuation plan for the island, according to The New York Time's City Room blog — which is particularly worrying since Rikers is built on landfill. Granted Hurricane Irene may do little more than give the city a heavy-handed bath, but the possibility of flooded prison cells remain.




For a little peek at what could happen, though likely on a much lesser scale, Solitary Watch points to the ACLU's post-Katrina report on how Orleans Parish Prison fared during the hurricane.

This culture of neglect was evident in the days before Katrina, when the sheriff declared that the prisoners would remain "where they belong," despite the mayor's decision to declare the city's first-ever mandatory evacuation. OPP even accepted prisoners, including juveniles as young as 10, from other facilities to ride out the storm.

As floodwaters rose in the OPP buildings, power was lost, and entire buildings were plunged into darkness. Deputies left their posts wholesale, leaving behind prisoners in locked cells, some standing in sewage-tainted water up to their chests.

"The sheriff's office was completely unprepared for the storm," said Tom Jawetz, Litigation Fellow for the National Prison Project. "The Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals did more for its 263 stray pets than the sheriff did for the more than 6,500 men, women and children left in his care."

Prisoners went days without food, water and ventilation, and deputies admit that they received no emergency training and were entirely unaware of any evacuation plan. Even some prison guards were left locked in at their posts to fend for themselves, unable to provide assistance to prisoners in need.

Rikers already has a pretty rotten reputation, but letting prisoners wallow in half-flooded cinderblock cell buildings would be taking it to a whole new level.

Update: In an e-mail, Samantha Levine, the mayor's deputy press secretary, wrote:

We carefully reviewed Rikers Island, as we have done with the entire city, and no section [original emphasis] of Rikers Island facilities are in Zone A.

Rikers Island facilies are not in low-lying areas, it's not a coastal location and, like nearby small islands Roosevelt Island and City Island, it does not need to be evacuated. We focused on the areas where real dangers exist.

A full Corrections Department staff will remain on Rikers Island and the facility is a fully self-sustaining entity, prepared to operate and care for inmates in extended emergency conditions."

A recidivist at Rikers

Prison chaplains are supposed to empathize, but Imam Aziz Ud-Din Bilal, who works at Rikers Island, has been taking things a little too far.He was busted Tuesday in a Queens prostitution sting -- his stunning 18th arrest in New York City since 1970.How he’s managed to keep his $50,000-a-year job at Rikers for the past two decades is a mystery to us. Heck, it’s probably a mystery to him, too.
Many Rikers inmates might envy Bilal’s rap sheet: Those 18 arrests include bribery charges, two prison stints for robbery and a 1985 murder charge (he was acquitted).



Last year he was investigated when cops found an unlicensed 9mm handgun in his Mercedes Benz when it was impounded.But only now, after his fifth arrest since he started working at Rikers in 1990, has Bilal been suspended from duty. By the way, Bilal has run for the City Council three times. During his run last year, he told a newspaper that “increasing job opportunities is his top priority.”

Somebody should tell the imam that soliciting prostitutes isn’t what most people consider to be a proper jobs program.It goes without saying that Bilal needs to be canned, pronto. But if hiring recidivist criminals to staff prisons is the best the city can do, well ... say your prayers.

Rikers Island forced to toss out $11,000 worth of rotten Jamaican beef patties

Red-faced Rikers Island jail honchos last week ordered city cooks to toss 14,000 rotten Jamaican beef patties into the trash, the Daily News has learned.The estimated $11,000 worth of rancid meat stuck to pans while emitting a nauseating smell once they were heated, several cooks and a top supervisor said.



"It was like the sewage. We didn't realize until we started cooking it," a jail chef said.
A city Correction Department spokeswoman insisted the lost meat was worth only $4,100.
But an internal document obtained by The News supported the account of multiple sources that it was worth more than double that amount.



The 1,450 cases of vile patties were bought two weeks ago from a new contractor, Robbins Sales, a wholesale canned food firm in Woodbury, L.I.
The department admitted some of the meat was tossed, but said other cases were returned.
"The meat was not spoiled, but as it could not be properly cooked, the patties could not be served to inmates," said spokeswoman SharmanStein.



She said that the city's purchasing department was immediately notified and is seeking a replacement for the rotten patties. Internal department documents show city inspectors notified Robbins Sales that the meat was sticking together and impossible to cook.



"I have no idea what you're talking about," Robbins Sales President Jeffery Zwecker told The News when asked about the meat, but Stein says the distributor has promised to reimburse the city in full.
Veteran jail kitchen staffers said they didn't understand how the meat wasn't checked before it was delivered.

BY Reuven Blau


DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

Resisting Help

Children need outside support to help them properly deal with the trauma of a parent's incarceration. Despite that, they often reject advice and inquiries from outsiders because they have had negative experiences when opening up to others.

"I felt like I don't want the extra attention. I didn't want to go to my friends and my peers, guidance counselors or anyone talking about it," said an Osborne program participant who requested anonymity. "I don't need the whole world to just be in my business, giving me extra attention that I do not want at all."

Osborne advocates training for teachers, guidance counselors and psychologists to help them properly handle and assist students with incarcerated parents."I think many say they don't want support but they do need support; many young people have not had a positive experience with a helping professional. First people need to be trained and more sensitive and understanding," Krupat said.



The organization also is pushing for increased community outreach to educate people on the realities of incarceration and reduce the stigma associated with it.



Cagle says that she's been trying to shake the stigma of her mother's incarceration for years. Often, community and family members can make it difficult for kids to escape the shadow of their parent's incarceration.

"Toward junior high school and high school it was a lot of pressure because everybody be like, 'Oh, don't mess up like your mother; don't be like your mother, you got to do good.' It was too much pressure on me," Cagle said. "Instead of people supporting me and telling me 'figure out what you want to do and make sure that you're the best at whatever you want to do,' everybody's always just like don't mess up."

"Some of the young people and the kids do struggle with what their destiny is. And then, with so many people assuming the apples don't fall far from the tree … they don't see bright futures for themselves," Krupat said. "Then things happen in their lives that affirm that for them, even if it's unintentional like a teacher accusing them when something's missing from the classroom or misunderstanding their anger that they can't be with their parent. And, then they may get sent to special-ed. Their possibilities get limited more and more."



This not only leads individuals having lower personal expectations. It also affects the expectations of entire communities.

"For me it wasn't such a big difference because I grew up in Bed-Stuy/Crown Heights. All my friends, most of them their father was locked up. So, we were the cool kids kind of," said Duncan, who will be headed to college in the Fall. "I wasn't embarrassed by it at all for some reason. I'm not saying it's normal, but for where I live at it's kind of a common thing."



Despite the hardships that the young men and women of Osborne have faced, many still hope for a productive present and a brighter tomorrow.

"Always believe in yourself and have faith ‘cause God, he helps. You just got to follow and trust him," said Rachel Rios, a 19-year-old daughter of a formerly incarcerated mother and father. "And it comes, you don't got to ask for nothing. It just comes to you when it's supposed to come to you, when you really need it."

The Burden of Incarceration

by Jason Lewis


Aug 2011


The words "strong unit" don't pop into most people's heads when they think about a family splintered by incarceration. The Osborne Association, though, believes that providing individuals, families and communities with access to education and support services will substantially reduce the negative effects of incarceration.



In addition to helping the child while the parent is incarcerated, such services can provide benefits after. Research indicates that prisoners who maintain ties with their families are less likely to return to prison and they have lower rates of drug use than those without such connections.


A look at the numbers makes the need for such support immediately apparent. An estimated 105,000 minor children in New York City have at least one parent who is incarcerated. In addition, thousands of single mothers, single fathers, grandparents, foster parents, extended-family members and family friends are left to care for those children – and are also deeply affected by the incarceration.



For over 40 years New York City and the rest of America has waged its so-called war on drugs and crime, causing the American prison population to soar by 700 percent from 1970 to 2005. The brunt of this "mass incarceration" has fallen on members of inner-city communities — particularly African-American and Hispanic men – as evinced by the fact that 1 in every 15 black males and 1 in every 36 Hispanic males over the age of 18 are incarcerated, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.



"Mass incarceration is an accurate description of how the criminal justice system is experienced in many particularly urban communities of color where a very high percentage of particularly African-American men have had contact with the criminal justice system often for things that in other communities would not result in an arrest or incarceration," said Ann Jacobs, director of the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay College.



Mass incarceration has played a huge role in the economic, social and psychological destabilization of many urban youngsters, families and communities of color. Unfortunately, no one began to substantially address the dramatic impact that mass incarceration has had on this segment of our population until 10 or 15 years ago — after decades of damage had already

City Council takes on Feds over immigrant detentions at Rikers Island

BY Reuven Blau
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The city council Wednesday introduced legislation to limit the power of federal immigration officers on Rikers Island.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have detained and deported hundreds of inmates charged with a variety of crimes - from low level quality-of-life offenses to felony drug charges.
Many of those detained or kicked out of the country are never convicted of a crime.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has championed the measure, which was hailed by immigration advocates.
"The time is overdue for New York City to end its collaboration with immigration enforcement programs that target vulnerable members of our communities and funnel them into a fundamentally broken system," said Rick Jones, executive director of Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem.
The Bloomberg administration has not taken a position on the bill.
"We are glad that the Council has begun considering the public safety aspects of this issue, and we look forward to reviewing the draft legislation," said mayoral spokesman Marc LaVorgna.
Federal immigration officials say further limits on their agents based at Rikers Island would take away one of their best tools for tossing foreign-born criminals.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/08/18/2011-08-18_council_takes_on_fed_deportations.html#ixzz1VPOxeg80

Bronxites who can't afford to pay bail for petty crimes get help from state legislature

BY DANIEL BEEKMAN

DAILY NEWS WRITER

Thousands of Bronxites do hard time at Rikers Island because they can't afford to post bail.
But new legislation headed to Gov. Cuomo's desk could set them free.
Passed unanimously in June by the Senate and Assembly, the bill would allow charitable organizations to post bail for poor defendants held on petty charges.
It was sponsored in the Senate by state Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) and modeled on the Bronx Freedom Fund.
Not only do thousands of Bronxites serve time because they can't afford bail; many innocent defendants plead guilty rather than wait behind bars for jury trials, said Rivera, who expects Cuomo to sign the bill this month.

New Yorkers critique city's jails on user-review website

USERS of the online review site Yelp - where anyone can become a critic of restaurants, nightclubs and stores - started branching out from their foodie focus by writing reviews of New York City's jails, the New York Post reported Monday.


According to Yelp, Rikers Island is the pick of the prisons, getting an average rating of 4.5 stars. "I had a terrific getaway on this luxurious island retreat," a Yelp critic named Diane B wrote. "Thank you, Rikers Island: It took me just a few weeks to realize I would never drink and drive again."



Manhattan Central Booking only averaged a paltry two stars, according to Yelp users. "I didn't try the food, but the single-serving cereal boxes make for an acceptable pillow," according to reviewer Paul K., who gave the place one of its better write-ups. "Third star is for not strip-searching me."



While some of the commenters may be internet pranksters, most of the reviews seemed to have been posted by people who actually spent time as invited guests of the police. "I wrote [a review] sort of as a laugh," 42-year-old Davisha Badone, of Manhattan, said after spending a night in jail on an assault rap after a bar fight. "It was spontaneous."

A lot of NYPD precinct houses are also reviewed on the site. Several got positive marks.




"They didn't serve me delicious vegetarian food or pour me any wine, but they were efficient and just plain nice in helping me file a report for my stolen wallet yesterday," reviewer Cara A. wrote of the 19th precinct, in Manhattan.

How

Mom's tough love: Won't bail troubled son from Rikers, so he can learn lesson

Holed up at Rikers Island, Steven Mercado awaits his fate as he faces robbery and crack-dealing charges stemming from three separate arrests in the past two months.


He's 16 years old - and looking at 15 years in prison.
His biological aunt, legal guardian and "mom," Debbie Earhart - who's raised him since birth - wants Steven to learn his lesson, but not by losing more than a decade of his life.

Earhart, 45, of Bedford Park won't post the teen's $3,000 cash bail, believing the only way Steven will stay out of trouble and finish school is if he's locked up.


"He needs to be in a program, he needs therapy - he has ADHD [Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] and behavioral problems - he's afraid," she said.



Earhart said Steven called her, telling her he had to change cell blocks after jailed members of the Trinitario gang threatened to choke him because he doesn't speak Spanish.



Short and slight, Steven is due back in court tomorrow, when his Legal Aid attorney will try to downgrade his 10 felony and six misdemeanor charges to a youthful offender status, which would land him just one year in jail.



The teen's parents have been in and out of prison and absent from his life, Earhart said.



"I think that's why he's so rebellious and angry," she said.



Steven failed all his classes last year at special education Lewis and Clark High School.



He will have to repeat the ninth grade, after he missing 37 days and being late 46 times.



But Earhart said, "He would do anything for his grandma. If she needed him to go to the store, he would drop everything and go for her."



Steven was first arrested on May 11,near Public School 54 on Decatur Ave. He is accused of selling four Ziploc bags containing crack cocaine to an undercover Bronx narcotics officer, according to a criminal complaint.



The teen was released on his own recognizance after he was arraigned on charges of criminal possession of and sale of a controlled substance.



On June 28, he was arrested along with Marcus Quattlebaum, 17, and Elijah Davis, 18, for allegedly robbing a man of his iPod on Hoffman St. near Middle School 45 - the school Earhart's daughter, an honors student, attends.



According to the criminal complaint, Steven also snatched two gold chains from the victim's neck.



As the baby-faced, scared-looking boy stood before Acting Supreme Court Justice William Mogulescu at his arraignment on June 29, Earhart reeled in the audience.



"They'll eat you alive in state prison. . . . Your mom is tired of seeing you locked up - do you think she likes sitting here?" Mogulescu asked, pointing to a visibly stressed-out Earhart.



Before releasing him into Earhart's custody , Mogulescu issued the boy a stiff warning that if he were caught doing anything wrong again, he'd be thrown right in the clink.



Earhart tried to enroll him in the Fortune Society - a nonprofit social service and advocacy program dedicated to formerly incarcerated individuals - but he got into trouble again.
Just a week later, on July 6, the troubled teen - along with "five unapprehended males" - allegedly kicked a man in the ribs and took his backpack and iPod from the man's pocket.
"There are people that commit murders and only go away for eight or nine years," Earhart said. "Why is he looking at 15?
"I don't condone what he did - he was wrong and he needs to pay for it - but he really needs help above anything."

BY Sarah Armaghan


DAILY NEWS WRITER

Rikers Island Fire Forces Evacuations

A quick-spreading fire in a Rikers Island jail, George Motchan Detention Center, Sunday night destroyed 200 beds and forced the inmates to evacuate. Several of the dormitories were destroyed, according to NY Daily, and the prisoners are being held in other facilities on Rikers Island. A spokesperson for the correction department said it started in a heating unit, but the cause is still under investigation. Over a hundred firefighters battled the two-alarm fire, and the incident caused no injuries.

Bed-Stuy Bandmate Robber Speaks: It Was The Weed, Man

By Christopher Robbins
Last week we learned that despite the best of intentions, Bed-Stuy can be a scary place to settle down. Now, the man who police say jumped out of a second-story window after stealing musical equipment from a house of Brooklyn College bandmates explains what happened: it was the weed, man. From a Rikers Island jail cell, 23-year-old DuJuan Marshall tells the Times that he doesn't remember storming into the boys' apartment and pistol whipping them while his accomplices unloaded the stolen equipment, because an angel-dusted joint did him in. "I feel their pain," he says, echoing another famous truth-teller.
Marshall says that the day in question began with a benediction, at a church on nearby Quincy Street. "The pastor told me, 'You have a blessing coming your way.'" Doing what anyone would do following that holy edict, Marshall bought a bottle of sparkling wine. He then says that one of the boys who was robbed approached him to ask for cocaine or ecstasy, and he told him he couldn't get any. However, 18-year-old Ian Harris claims that Marshall in fact "mumbled something" about drugs, and he was "just, like, talking to himself."
Then, our protagonist "was smoking with people I shouldn't have been smoking with," and doesn't remember much afterwards. Marshall claims he went to a party at the boys' apartment, and his theory (just level with him for a minute) is that "the police stormed into the apartment, threw him out the window and beat the musicians, forcing them to say that they had been robbed." Told this version of events, one of the victims said: "That's definitely not how it went down."
Regardless of his current status in Rikers, where his grandmother used to be a prison guard, Marshall is an aspiring real estate agent, who feels that Bed-Stuy still has plenty of potential. To someone who's interested in buying the building, he has some advice: "I'd say the values on the block are rising." He's a natural!

Mexican inmate tries to escape in suitcase wheeled by wife after conjugal visit

Police say a woman was caught trying to sneak her common-law-husband out of a Mexican prison in a suitcase following a conjugal visit.

A spokesman for police in the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo says staff at the prison in Chetumal noticed that the woman seemed nervous and was pulling a black, wheeled suitcase that looked bulky.
Spokesman Gerardo Campos said Monday that prison guards checked the bag of 19-year-old Maria del Mar Arjona and found inmate Juan Ramirez Tijerina curled up inside in the fetal position.
Ramirez is serving a 20-year sentence for a 2007 conviction for illegal weapons possession.
Arjona was arrested and charges are pending.

Baysiders Convicted in Fatal Gang Attack - Bayside, NY Patch

Baysiders Convicted in Fatal Gang Attack - Bayside, NY Patch

Man held at Rikers Island Released after "real" crook spotted

By WILLIAM J. GORTA

A Brooklyn man being held on Rikers Island on a robbery charge caught a lucky break when the key eyewitness against him spotted the “real” robber on the street.
The robbery trial of Michael Taylor, 50, was about to begin yesterday when the man who picked him out of a lineup told a prosecutor that he was on his way to court to testify against Taylor when he saw the man who robbed him walking on Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn.
But Taylor, who was accused of robbing a Bensonhurst Radio Shack in 2009, has been in jail for months, first serving out a petit larceny sentence and then cooling his heels while he was unable to make bail in the robbery case.

The prosecutor told the defense and the judge of the ID mix-up and Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Deborah Dowling dismissed the case, allowing Taylor to walk out of court a free man.

“It was beautiful,” said defense lawyer Renate Lunn. “There was no more perfect day to be released from Rikers.”
Lunn said case against Taylor, who served prison terms for robbery and grand larceny, hinged on the testimony of the erring eyewitness.
“There were no prints, no video – even though this was a Radio Shack,” she said. “This has been a learning process on the unreliability of eyewitnesses.”
Taylor said only, “I’m glad the nightmare is finally over.”


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/man_held_at_rikers_released_after_O4y9uDLoi31r3nSTMDpj7K#ixzz1LxTC5qQM

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the amazing mothers, grandmothers, aunties, god-mothers and friends!!
Today is your day! Everyday you give yourself to your children in hopes to teach them valuable lessons to make them responsible and well rounded adults!! It can be a thankless job and it doesn't come with any instructions or manual. Although today I'm not spending it with my Mom but I am honoring a lesson she taught me many years ago! Charity!! Today I'm going to spend time with children whose mothers are incarcerated. I hope to bring them a little joy on a very difficult day for them.When I told my Mom what I was doing today she said it was the best gift I could ever give her!!

Security breakdown at Rikers Island left shackled inmate a sitting ...

New York Daily News


BY John Lauinger

The entrance to Rikers Island on Hazen Street.

 A major security breakdown on Rikers Island left a shackled inmate unsupervised - a virtual sitting duck for another prisoner who savagely slashed him, sources told the Daily News.



One correction officer was suspended without pay for a month and a captain was also suspended, city officials said. Several other correction officers are under investigation for the procedural screwups that contributed to the gang-related attack.



"It felt like it was a setup," said Raquieth Johnson, 23, who recalled choking on his own blood after the April 14 attack. "It felt like a hit."
Despite a sharp decline in jail violence - there were just 34 stabbings and slashings last year compared with 1,005 in 1995 - officials say gangs are still a problem.



In an exclusive jailhouse interview last week, Johnson still bore evidence of the attack on his head and face - stab wounds sutured in a way that resembles the laces on a football. A deep slice opened a blood vessel in one of his temples. One side of his face was torn open from his ear to his mouth. It took more than 150 stitches to close the wounds.



Johnson said he was restrained with leg irons, a waist chain and handcuffs locked into the waist chain. His hands were also fitted with security mittens as he was being escorted from his one-hour recreation period on the yard back to his cell.



Sources said jail regulations require inmates like Johnson, who has a record of violence behind bars, to be escorted by a captain. The suspended captain, Lenox Hackett, was eating breakfast in the yard and dispatched a correction officer instead.



Johnson said a single officer accompanied him and two other inmates through two gates to their tier. Michaun Jacques, the suspended correction officer, was posted on that tier.



A team of correction officers and a captain are supposed to escort each of the high-risk inmates to their cells and remove their restraints.



"None of that happened," a corrections source said.

Instead, the officer who escorted the three inmates from the yard took one of the prisoners to another part of the tier, allowing Johnson and the other man to shuffle toward their cells unsupervised.



In a flash, inmate Michael Molinero, 23, who was awaiting trial for murder, rushed Johnson from behind and sliced his face with the makeshift blade, sources said.



Molinero had asked to be let out of his cell to shave just minutes before the attack, the sources said.

The timing of the request left him roaming free when Johnson arrived on the cell block. Johnson, who is awaiting trial in a 2008 murder in Queens, told The News he did not see his attacker. He would not finger Molinero.

Johnson, who sources say is a member of the Bloods street gang, said he asked Jacques for help, but she ran past him. He said he laid up against a locked tier gate, fearing his attacker would finish him off.

The Department of Correction is probing the troubling series of screwups that allowed the attacker to run loose with a handmade blade in a maximum-security cell block, jail sources said.

Johnson's father, Robert, said his family plans to sue the city. The elder Johnson said he got a phone call from his son after the attack."Dad, they tried to kill me," the younger Johnson told his dad. "They had me in chains. I walked by, the guard turned her back and this guy almost killed me."

Investigators presented evidence to the Bronx district attorney's Office Friday. No one has been charged.

The probe will lack a key piece of evidence. A source said inmates tampered with at least one security camera on the tier so there's no recording of the attack.

Jail officials said Raquieth Johnson and Molinero are violent Bloods - and the attack shows that gangs still create tremendous security problems in the city's jails. About 2,700 inmates - or roughly 20% of the total population of about 13,000 - are affiliated with one of the 60 gangs and subgroups represented in the system, officials said.

New York City Loosie Sales on the Rise

New York City Loosie Sales on the Rise

Rikers Island prison guard arrested in jailbreak for cocaine plot | 7online.com

Rikers Island prison guard arrested in jailbreak for cocaine plot 7online.com

Should inmates pay for their jail time? - Topix

Should inmates pay for their jail time? - Topix

So excited

Im not really a good writer but for the next six weeks I decided to keep a journal. I'm crazy in love with a man that has been incareated for a number of years and soon he will be home. I have so many feelings and emotions. I'm so excited we are finally going to be together. What I'm most excited about is that fact that I have started this business and he has something to come home to. We not only will have our love but will have a foundation of being partners in business. Welcome to my journey. In the meantime checkout my website and please send me any and all feedback.http://www.5149group.com/