Rikers Island Correctional Facility

On Wednesday our group met with an activist and LREI parent Saadiq Bey. After exchanging a few emails, our group, met with him in the Learning Lab to discuss his social justice work, and how we can help. He told us about juvenile incarceration, the impact it has on families and how it can be prevented. He experienced the affect incarceration has on families firsthand when a family member served almost two decades in various maximum security prisons in upstate New York, including the notoriously dangerous Sing Sing prison. He remembers visiting this person in the various prisons, and the toll it took on his family. Given his extensive knowledge on incarceration and particularly juvenile incarceration he told us many intriguing facts and statistics. One I found particularly relevant was how if your father is in prison, you are much more likely to attend a juvenile facility. Saadiq told us how this cycle of incarceration breaks up families and does more harm than rehabilitation. He thinks that prisons and juvenile facility’s should focus more on rehabilitation than on locking someone up. He thinks that prisons should have counseling and facilities that help inmates. He feels like giving someone very long sentences for nonviolent crimes such as drug offenses is unjust and hurts people more than it helps them. Statistics back that statement up as well. We learned that most people who attend prison often reoffend and get sent back to prison. This made my group wonder, what’s the point of high incarceration rates and unsafe prison conditions if they don’t even work? Overall we learned a lot. Our group learned of a lot of helpful organizations. We look forward to more interviews with knowledgable people.