Rikers Island

Shocking Rikers Security Breach! Convicted Sex Offender Posing as Correction Staffer Roams Jails, No One Stops Him

Correction Commissioner Dora Schriro has a major problem: a massive breach of jail security. The Voice has learned that a convicted sex offender with a long rap sheet was recently able to repeatedly drive onto Rikers Island and roam jails and other highly secure areas over a period of more than week ... More >>

Rikers Gets New Program to Help Folks Stay Out of Jail

Okay folks, admittedly we're kind of hard on the Correction Department. We've published a bunch of articles about bad goings on out in the Rikers Island jails in recent years. But this time, we're going to throw some kudos to Commissioner Dora Schriro and Mayor Bloomberg for starting a new program t ... More >>

Ronald Spear's Death At Rikers: A Host of Disturbing Questions Emerge

On the afternoon of Dec. 19, Nellie Kelly's phone rang. The caller identified himself as an inmate on Rikers Island, and told her he had some bad news about her brother, Ronald Spear. The inmate's name was Jesse James. He was 29, and had been awaiting trial since September in the jail known as the ... More >>

Jason Echeverria's Death In City Jail Ruled Homicide; Mentally Ill Inmate Swallowed Detergent, Staff Didn't Act

The city Medical Examiner has classified the Aug. 19 death of a Rikers Island inmate who swallowed a ball of laundry detergent as a homicide, the Voice has learned. The death of Jason Echeverria in the Mental Health Assessment Unit in the George R. Vierno Center is believed to be the first homicide ... More >>

Rikers Con Job

With jail violence out of control, a bogus task force only made things worse

Robert Patterson, Federal Judge, Fines City 10 Grand For Failing to Turn Over Documents

In an unusual move, a federal judge has fined the city $10,000 for failing to turn over documents in a lawsuit filed by a man who was badly beaten while being held in a Rikers Island jail. Ruling in the Kadeem John case, U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson sanctioned the city last week for repeate ... More >>

Rikers Fight Club: The Ides of June Leave 5 Slashed in One Week

The week of June 5 to June 12 was a pretty bad one out on Rikers Island. Records obtained by the Voice show there were at least 8 significant fights, 5 inmates suffered slash wounds, several inmates sustained serious injuries, and there were 5 uses of force by correction officers. The worst of the ... More >>

More Details on Suicide and Slashing at Rikers

The Voice has more details about the man who committed suicide on Rikers, a case that we first reported on Friday. His name is Jamal Polo, age 24. Polo was being held at Rikers on a charge of felony sodomy and forcible touching. Polo hung himself at the George Motchan Detention Center where he was ... More >>

Rikers Fight Club: Spate of Violence Roils Jails

A spate of violence and death hit the city jails over the past five days, including three slashings and a suicide, the Voice has learned. One of the slashings took place in the Robert N. Davoren Center, which houses teen inmates, and was the subject of a recent Voice article on violence.

This Week in the Voice: Rikers Violence, Out of Control

This week in the Voice, out today: Graham Rayman has obtained photos of Rikers inmates with severe knife wounds and beatings to the face, neck, and arms, writing: "Four years ago, the Voice first wrote about the violence at Rikers, which was not only condoned but also promoted by jail officials in a ... More >>

Q&A: Tragedy Khadafi On Growing Up In Queensbridge, How Jail Has Changed, And Reaching The Kids In The Projects

Tragedy Khadafi is one of the last of a dying breed. Lucky for us, he dies harder than Bruce Willis. Even at 14, he was putting out music—most notably a song with DJ Hot Day called "Go Queensbridge" that caught the attention of Juice Crew leader Marley Marl, who put the young Tragedy down with ... More >>

Dominique Strauss-Kahn Moving to Undisclosed New Location

​Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the IMF accused of the sexual assault of a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York, is reportedly moving from the temporary apartment building at 71 Broadway where he'd been staying since he was released from Rikers on Friday. While Justice ... More >>

Mayor Bloomberg Cutting Carbs, Pudding in Jail

​Prisoners at Rikers Island will eat less thanks to Michael Bloomberg's budget cuts, which are now coming for carbohydrates. Instead of eight slices of whole wheat bread every day, inmates will get six as part of a $1.6 billion budget adjustment proposed this week, the Daily News is reporting. ... More >>

Week In Review: We Also Accept Your Future Apology In Advance

Everybody just stop yelling, OK? Photo by Daniel Snyder.​In the week we talked about Odd Future, kidnapping and murder, and why we sometimes like the things that repel us, we also saw the group live--alongside every other music critic in the city. They struck a weird balance to the other big r ... More >>

Lil Wayne Is Officially A Free Man

And like that, the rapper most loved by former and current United States presidents is finally out of jail, eight months after he went into Rikers on felony gun charges. "You guys waiting for that jackass?" a Rikers guard asked the Rolling Stone reporter that had staked out the jail this morning. ... More >>

Pervy Rabbi Tricks Traif With Kosher Prison Meals

​Feels like the New York Post missed a great headline in this one: a Rabbi housed on Rikers Island stopped eating not because he wasn't being served Kosher meals, but because the meals weren't certified by a Rabbi of his choice...

Week in Review: Sign of Victory

One of these dudes is noticeably less enthusiastic than all the other dudes. Photo by Nate "Igor" Smith​In the week we interviewed an actual fitness instructor about the theoretical plausibility of exercising to Sleigh Bells, we also penned a Twitter-based ode to Erykah Badu's habitual latenes ... More >>

Lil Wayne: The Rikers Island Prison Rap

The heartbreaking genesis of this song? Lil Wayne heard his protégé Drake's collaboration with Jay-Z, "Light Up," over the radio in his cell in Rikers, where he's serving a year and day on weapons charges. Once the center of the rap universe, Wayne was left a spectator. But not for long--a day l ... More >>

Gucci Mane Is A Free Man

​Even as fellow famous incarcerated rapper Lil Wayne faces disciplinary action today at Rikers for violating prison rules regarding possession of unauthorized electronics, Atlanta's Gucci Mane strolled out the front door of Georgia's Fulton County Jail this morning, a free man. Outside the jai ... More >>

Breaking: Lil Wayne Caught With Unauthorized Electronics in His Jail Cell [Updated]

​Corrections sources are telling the Voice that rapper Lil Wayne was caught today at Rikers in possession of "unauthorized earphones and a charger" during a search. An investigation is underway to find the missing device (almost certainly an iPod or other kind of MP3 player) that goes with the ... More >>

Sharon Jones On Her Rikers Island Prison Guard Days: "If Another Inmate Had Sang That Song To Me, I'd Have Punched Him In The Face"

​Try and guess which song she's talking about. Fun eMusic Jukebox Jury piece by Michaelangelo Matos (they sit in her car, he plays a bunch of tunes, she sassily free-associates), particularly when they get into her oft-discussed stint as a Rikers guard:

The Morning Ink: Monday, March 29th, 2010

​So starts our morning news roundup. Today: the housing law in New York you're probably breaking right now. The hot ticket that is President Obama's Passover Seder. Lindsay Lohan's yayo "uh oh," a riot at Rikers, Christian Militia madmen, and more. Here's what's in the news this morning:

Lil Wayne Goes to Jail Today, But At Least We Have This Young Money "Roger That" Video to Remember Him By

Here is the first of a reported nine videos Lil Wayne shot in front of various green screens before reporting to Rikers today. This time, they opted for a comic strip treatment--fitting for not just Wayne but Nicki Minaj, who is basically a walking comic book character anyway. A Rikers guard fille ... More >>

Woman Mistaken for a Man in City Jail Sues Over Her Ordeal

​Jail guards somehow mistook a mother of four for a man and stuck her in an all-male holding area for two days, where inmates urinated on her shoes, exposed themselves to her and threatened her with rape, the Voice has learned. Joan Gonzalez, 43, of the Bronx, repeatedly pleaded with correcti ... More >>

Starbucks Bombing Kid's Facebook Friends Talk About Fight Club, Sentencing

Acquaintances and schoolmates of arrested Starbucks bomber Kyle Shaw are conversing about him under a link to a Daily News article about the Fight Club-loving teen. The link to the article "Teen 'Fight Club' devotee and suspected Starbucks bomber Kyle Shaw roughed up at Rikers Island" was posted on ... More >>

Rikers Inmate Dies of Trauma; Investigation Pending

If you followed Graham Rayman's series on suspicious (and sometimes fatal) beatdowns at Rikers Island, this story may interest you: a 60-year-old detained there for a Queens burglary has died after an altercation with guards. Clarence (or Clarnice) Mobley, "behaving erratically," assaulted a guard w ... More >>

Family of Dead Inmate Confronted by Angry Correction Officers Outside Court

Simmering tensions between the family of a teenager beaten to death at Rikers Island and correction officers erupted today at the Bronx courthouse.    As an arraignment for several inmates charged in the case ended, more than 30 correction officers confronted members of Christopher Ro ... More >>

Rikers Fight Club: More Widespread Then The City Admits

Even as indictments came down for two jail guards accused of using teen inmates as enforcers, Correction Department officials sought to downplay the breadth of the problem.The indictments last month followed the October murder of teenager Christopher Robinson in the Rikers Island jail for young offe ... More >>

Jail Guard Union Throws Party for Indicted Guards

   Last Friday, the Voice has learned, the union for correction officers held a 10-hour fundraiser to benefit three members who were indicted two weeks ago for deputizing teen inmates as enforcers in a Rikers Island jail.     In the fallout that has followed the murder of te ... More >>

This Week in the Voice

Graham Rayman has been following the "Fight Club" cooked up by Rikers Island guards for a couple of years, and the Bronx D.A. has started dishing out charges. Inmates used and rewarded as enforcers, beatings arranged so as not to leave marks, victims intimidated into silence (and a few killed) -- t ... More >>

More Coverage of Rikers Island "Fight Club" First Covered Here

In July 2007 Graham Rayman revealed in the Voice that guards at Rikers were deputizing inmates "to beat up other inmates," sometimes paying them with cigarettes, and that internal reports were played off and at least one whistleblower fired. "Young people tell me when they go in there, the culture i ... More >>

3 Arrests in Inmate Killing Probed by Voice

You've seen the stories Voice reporter Graham Rayman has been writing about the October killing of Christopher Robinson on Rikers Island -- how the 18-year-old inmate was beaten to death under peculiar circumstances and how, after Rayman's continued probing, first one and then several Corrections ... More >>

More Heads Roll in Wake of Rikers Jail Murder

Rikers Death Forces Out High Jail Official

Follow-Up: Grand Jury Will Hear Case of Teen Killed at Rikers

Midday Mash-Up: Dolls, Death, Drunk, etc.

Drug Counselor at Rikers Gets Busted for . . . Dope

Months after selling coke to an undercover, cops find him with 100 packets of 'Black Gold'

Correction Official: No Indication Counselor Brought Drugs to Rikers

Top Rikers Drug Counselor Busted for Selling Heroin and Cocaine

Shooting Star

Taking aim at Remy Ma

Who Killed Robert Konopka?

His psychotic Rikers cellmate—or the prison system itself?

Baby Madness

How one young woman's delusions cost her years of freedom

Suffer the Children

The Conversions

The Education of a Juror

The Woman Who Bailed Out a Drug Defendant Tells Her Story

Letters

Letters

Life on the Outside

After 16 Years in Prison Elaine Bartlett Came Home to a City and a Family She Barely Knew. Freedom Wasn’t at All What She’d Imagined

Letters

Prisoner's Dilemma

Learning the Hard Way at Rikers

Jailhouse Rock

A Christian Road Show Comes to Rikers