Today we got to meet with Saadiq Bey, a member of the Fortune Society, and an LREI parent. Before our interview we had watched a video he linked us to called “The Box” by a colleague of his, Ishmael Nazarro, who was incarcerated as a teenager. The video depicts his time in a place in Rikers Island called the box, it was a solitary confinement cell, 6” x 8” with one window and a cot. Prisoners could be placed in “the box” for various reasons and Mr. Nazarro once spend 4 months straight there, 23 hours a day, no one to talk too.

In our interview with Mr. Bey he told us that his father was imprisoned from when he was 2 to when he was 18, so most of his childhood. He said after living through that he was destined to help other people who might be in that situation, Helping people with family in prisons, helping youth in prisons, and helping integrate released inmates back into the swing of life. He gave us the statistic that youth in prisons who had been educated were 10 times less likely to be arrested again or to violate their parole. He also told us that it cost roughly $ 100,000 to house a juvenile for 1 year, yet with such inadequate facilities, and violations of human rights, you wonder where some of that money goes. In addition to what Mr. Bey told us he also said he could get us into contact with Ishmael Nazarro, and the Fortune Society for another interview or fieldwork.

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