You’re 16. You’re alone. You’re afraid. You’re confined to a cold, wet six-by-eight cell with low lights. This is what former juvenile offender Ismael Nazario experienced during his stay at the Rikers Island Correctional Facility. For a petty theft, he received a lengthy sentence at Rikers. In addition to that, he was brought back for “fitting the description” of a crime he did not commit.  (This has since been expunged from his record.) Rikers was a strange new world far from home, and he knew he had to be tough to survive. He learned to defend himself and had to fight off many people. These acts of self preservation got him thrown in segregation units or ”The Box” on multiple occasions. His longest stint in the box lasted four months, after he had to fight a guy that tried to steal his sneakers. In the short film about his incarceration, he recalls the bitter isolation he experienced. He paced a lot, talking to himself and choking back tears and rage. He tried to block out the screaming of the teenage boys in other jail cells in his unit, but he couldn’t. Sometimes, he would stand at the door of his tiny cell and yell. Instead of prison and this brutal isolation, Ismael recommends that these teens go through rehabilitation and counseling rather than the harsh world of prison, which causes more problems than it solves.