My understanding is they are not integrated into the general population at 16, but are housed at Riker’s. New York automatically prosecutes 16 and up as adults. This means they go to an adult facility. But they are not mixed with the general population.
The New York Times has recently done some good reporting on Rikers:
Among the things it covered included things like the systematic abuse of mentally ill inmates (including the one who baked to death and the one who, after he swallowed a bleach tablet, died after being refused medical treatment on the order of a captain), the torture of critically ill inmates by having a van drive them around the city for hours before taking them to a hospital or not (which they refer to as “bus therapy”), the beating of prisoners on gurneys and who are handcuffed (especially with head beatings) just outside of camera range, the union president screaming and yelling at a health commissioner doing a tour and threatening to leave her alone with inmates, the refusal of the city attorneys to ever prosecute guards for misconduct, etc.
It is clear that the entire system of violence against inmates is deeply ingrained. It would be horrifying to be jailed there. And let me point this out: this is a jail, not a prison. The people being held there have either not been to trial and convicted or have only been convicted of misdemeanors.
Yes all this is true.I know for a fact that at least one other female prisoner was “baked” to death. Essentially murdered b/c the c.o.'s ignored or responded to her cries for help by yelling back “Shut the fuck up!” instead of letting her out of her cell when it was over 100 degrees in there. The co’s sit comfortably in an air conditioned control room. She cried out from 11pm till bout 4am then we heard nothing. At 5 am when locks were popped open they found her dead. She wasn’t mentally ill part of genl pop in new admits. It was all hushed up I never saw, heard, read anything about it in newspapers on TV nothing. Made me wonder how many other incidents like this occurred under Bloomberg.
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