The Fellows at Prison

So the highly anticipated annual Fellows trip to Rikers Island took place last week. For the uninitiated, Rikers is NYC's prison, located just off the "coast" of Queens, with a landmass of over 75 landfill. It's pretty much an entire city unto itself - complete with 10 prison facilities, a water treatment plant, a visiting house, central laundry and bakery and other pleasant amenities. The island is capable of housing up to 17,000 inmates, all of whom are either waiting to be sentenced or serving terms of one year or less.

We are able to take the tour because one of the Fellows works in the Discharge Planning division, which started just 5 years ago with the goal of reducing recidivism and homelessness among those released from Rikers. The division has formed a collaboration with the Dept. of Homeless Services and Dept. of Human Resources to help inmates about to be released access benefits, housing, employment services, legal assistance, education, etc. It sounds like they've really made a lot of progress in trying to help what would probably be the hardest service-needy population there is.

We took a tour of the one women's facility, and dropped in on a drug awareness class that is part of a voluntary support program for inmates who want to take advantage of the discharge planning process. At first it was incredibly uncomfortable - 25 fresh-faced Fellows standing in this room with 40 inmates during a drug support group - um, awkward. I felt like we were just staring at them in some sort of zoological exhibit. But then, their facilitator asked if they had any questions for us, and a woman says, "Um, who are you??" So one of the Fellows introduced the group, and the facilitator asked US if we had any questions. The last question asked was the most powerful, "What would you want people to know about you?" The answers: "I'm still a person." "Even though I've bad choices, I'm a good person." "I can change."

Then on a lighter note, we saw a demonstration of the canine unit. The officer planted a bag of pot (Where did it come from? We didn't ask...) in a gas tank. The dog, trained in what we learned was "passive alert," was let out of the van and went immediately for the cars. It took all of about 2o seconds to head to the rear of the car and sit down, looking happily at the officer with a look that said "Ok great, what's next?" Then the guy had all the Fellows line up and put the baggie in Elijah's pocket. The dog went right down the line and sat in front of him, tail wagging. You'd never guess he was actually saying, "Welp, here's the druggie!" It was pretty amazing.

Lunch was made for us by a group called Fresh Start, which is a culinary training program for male inmates. It was good, too! We also toured the nursery, a men's jail and the visiting house. I've never really thought about the reality of being locked up, but am I glad I've never had to. It was so strange walking through the halls. There are lines painted in the hallway and you have to walk between the lines and walls. We'd be walking down one side of the hallway and be passed by a line of inmates going in the other direction. I've never been so hyper aware of my situation vs. another's. You couldn't help feeling guilty just knowing that you were going to walk out of that building today and back into a normal life...

So anyway, that was my day at prison. It was enough to make one's head spin.