Lockdown on Rikers

by Ms. Mary E. Buser

  The crowd seemed unfazed by our presence, although someone recognized Janet. “Hello, Miss Waters!” Janet’s response was friendly but restrained.

  On the outer edges of the crowd, I noticed emaciated women with ghostlike stares shuffling along in baggy, billowing clothes. Janet leaned down and whispered, “Crack addicts—just arrested. Couple of months in here, off drugs, they’ll come back to life, you watch.”

  I tried not to stare at these eerie figures, but I wondered about Janet’s assertion that they would “come back to life” in here. Could they have done so on their own? Maybe jail wasn’t such a bad thing for them. Maybe it was just the intervention they needed. I hoped I could be a part of it.

  But it wasn’t exactly a pleasant intervention. Although street clothes were permitted, hats were not allowed outside the housing areas, and somewhere in the sea of women, a red kerchief was bobbing along. An officer reached out a tattooed arm and snatched it off the head of a startled young woman. “What the fuck you doing?” he roared. “Not in my jail, you don’t!”

  Janet sighed but said nothing, and we continued on, our progress slowed by barred gates that were now shut. At each one, we held up our ID badges to officers who opened them and just as quickly locked them up again. There was no easy movement through the jail, as passageways were sectioned off from one gate to the next.

  As we neared the jail’s entryway, Janet nodded to the CO who stood guard over the receiving room. As he fussed with keys, I could already hear the clamor on the other side. “Brace yourself,” Janet said. The door swung open to reveal cages—floor-to-ceiling bullpens where mobs of disheveled women were pressed in tightly. With arms flailing through the bars, they sobbed and cried out, “I’m hungry. I need to call my mother. I didn’t do anything! I’m cold. Help me!” Their pleas were directed at officers, seated behind a large console, who never looked up.

  The sight of human beings in cages caught me off guard. It felt utterly barbaric, and my knees began to wobble. I glanced at Janet, who seemed unperturbed. Yet I knew she cared. Somehow, Janet managed to go about her work, holding herself above the sad fray. I didn’t know how she did it, but if I was really going to do this work, I had to toughen up.

  Behind the console was an open rear door. The skies had cleared, a blue sky now beckoned, and a bus sat idling. A line of seven women, each one handcuffed to a single long chain, were being led off the bus. Some wore sneakers, others flip-flops, whatever they’d been wearing at the unexpected point of arrest. With eyes swollen from crying, they looked exhausted and defeated.

  “Incoming bodies!” a CO shouted. His colleague eyed the arriving line and shook his head. “Too many goddamned bodies—not enough beds!”

  Bodies?

  I followed Janet to a nurses’ booth where cursory mental health screenings were part of the intake process. A nurse handed Janet a chart. “Her name’s Tiffany Glover. First time in, doesn’t look good—thought you should have a look.”

  Off to the side, a single holding pen held the inmate in question. A CO unlocked it and told Tiffany Glover to step out. No older than twenty, with her hair pulled into a ponytail, she reminded me of a deer, her long skinny legs set off by a pair of bony knees. Wearing a T-shirt over her emaciated frame, Tiffany Glover resembled the stick figures in the halls—the crack addicts.

  Janet told Tiffany who we were and asked her how she was feeling. But the sad young woman simply stared at the floor.

  “We’re going to help you,” Janet said, eyeing the pink scars that crisscrossed the young woman’s forearms.

  “I wanna go home,” she whispered. “I’m not a criminal.”

  “Tiffany,” said Janet. “I understand this is your first time in jail. Are you having any thoughts of hurting yourself?”

  “I wanna go home.”

  Although it was a safe bet that everyone wanted to go home, with her slumped shoulders, no eye contact, and a propensity for cutting herself, I could see why the drooping Tiffany Glover was a particular concern.

  “Tiffany,” said Janet, “we’re going to help you while you’re in here. We’re going to transfer you to a special house, and Miss Buser here is going to work with you. We’ll give you some medicine so you won’t feel so depressed. We’re going to help you get through this, okay?”

  I tried to offer Tiffany a little smile, but she never looked up. Large teardrops were rolling down her cheeks. Other than being told she could get back on the bus and leave, I don’t think anything would have comforted Tiffany Glover in that moment.

  From the thick folder that Janet carried with her, she pulled out a transfer form and showed me how to fill it out. She handed it to the officers at the console, instructing them to house Tiffany Glover on the Mental Observation Unit.

  As Tiffany was ushered back into the pen, Janet cautioned me about the heightened suicide risk for first incarcerations. “She’ll come around, but right now I’d rather play it safe.”

  As we walked past the pens to leave, a sobbing older woman in a floral housecoat was waving to us frantically. In broken English, she tearfully cried, “Por favor! Ay dios mio! I live my sister and my sister son, I take care him—I go get milk before sister go work—she clean office at night, in city—I go corner,” she said, her voice starting to break, “policía, policía come—they put to wall. Me, me no have drug. I tell policía, I buy leche, but he say me, ‘Shut fuck up!’ I get milk,” she said pointing to her feet, to the fuzzy blue slippers she was wearing when she ran out for the milk. “My sister, she no phone—she know . . . where I go! Ay dios mio!”

  “Looks like she was picked up in a drug sweep,” Janet said. “Okay, hold on,” Janet told her, as she opened up her notebook.

  I knew of the infamous drug sweeps that are carried out regularly in the city’s poorer neighborhoods as part of the federal “War on Drugs.” These sweeps cast a wide net, and it’s not unusual for the innocent to be swept up with the guilty. While this woman may have been mixed up with drugs, she could just as easily have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and, if so, the idea that she could have been plucked off the street like this was frightening.

  Janet jotted down her name. “I’ll have someone from Social Services call you,” she told the woman. “They’ll help you write a letter to your sister, so she knows where you are.”

  “The least we can do,” Janet muttered. “I’m sure she’s got no money for bail, so she’ll sit here for a few months while her case gets sorted out.”

  A few months! Her sister would find out where she was through a letter! It seemed inconceivably primitive, but there was Janet, jotting it all down.

  “Gracias, gracias!” the woman said, wringing her hands together.

  I doubt she understood what Janet was saying, but she seemed grateful for this little bit of attention.

  While we waited at the exit door, the bar-banging and shouting had grown deafening, and one CO was no longer ignoring it. A short officer with bulging biceps charged out from behind the console and shouted, “Shut up! Shut up, motherfuckers! Shut the fuck UPPP!”

  The receiving room went stone silent, save for quiet sobbing and the idling bus.

  “Come on, Mary, let’s go,” Janet said. She didn’t have to ask twice.

  Out in the hall, I said to Janet, “How could he speak to those women like that?”

  Janet sighed. “I’m afraid you’re going to see a lot in here that’ll be upsetting. Some COs are a lot worse than him. But we’re not going to change their behavior, Mary. We walk a fine line in here—remember, this is their house, and we’re guests. If we’re going to do our work in here—and we do a lot of good for these inmates—then there are things we have to overlook. We’re going to help Tiffany Glover, and that’s what we need to stay focused on.”

  I saw her point. I would try to keep my eye on the bigger picture.


  “Now,” Janet said, “Our next stop is the Mental Observation Unit. Ever since the state started shutting down the big psych hospitals, the mentally ill just can’t cut it on their own. They get in trouble with the police, usually for petty, stupid things, and they wind up in here. To take care of them, most of the jails on the island have a Mental Observation Unit, or ‘MO’ as we call it. It’s where each jail houses its mentally ill inmates, those with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dementia. It’s also where we place inmates at risk for suicide.”

  As we continued through the halls, we passed a series of barred gates that lined the walls. Next to each one was a big black number. “These are the entryways to their houses,” Janet explained. “And the number just identifies the house—it’s the address, so to speak. The houses, as they’re called, are where the women essentially live, where they shower and sleep.” At one of these barred gateways that lined the halls, Janet stopped, and my soft-spoken supervisor rapped on the bars. “on—the—gate!” she shouted. As the gate shuddered and started moving, she winked at me. “Jail language.” Once inside, we stepped into the “bubble,” a Plexiglas booth where we were greeted by a chubby CO in a worn-out swivel chair who passed us a logbook. In front of his desk, a broad picture window looked directly into a cellblock, where mentally ill inmates milled about. “Hello, Miss W,” the congenial officer said. Janet introduced me to Officer Timlinson, who took an immediate interest in my jailhouse education. “This is what’s called a protected house,” he said. “These MO inmates, they don’t mingle with general population [GP]. Their meals are brought here, they don’t go to the clinic—the doctors and nurses come here, for their own protection. We keep a good eye on them.”

  We thanked him, stepped out of the bubble, and waited for him to “pop” the door leading onto the MO. Never having been in a psychiatric ward before, I was clutching my notebook tightly. But nothing happened when we walked in. In the middle of an old linoleum floor bordered by a long row of sulfur-colored cell doors, a dozen or so women, looking slightly “off,” sat in colored plastic chairs around a big TV set. I immediately recognized these women as those sad but familiar figures often seen on the city landscape, prowling the subways in tattered clothes and standing on street corners ranting and raving to the world and no one—the sorry souls that the rest of us sidestep.

  Now, they were stabilized on Rikers Island, rocking back and forth, lightly tapping laceless sneakers to the floor.

  “Side effects of their meds,” Janet said, referring to the tapping. “But even with the side effects, they’re doing a whole lot better than they were out on the streets.” She also explained the missing shoelaces. “We take away belts and shoelaces when they’re admitted, to thwart any suicide plan.” Fixtures that could potentially be used for a hanging also had been removed. As a further precaution, two GP inmates with laced-up sneakers and belted jeans sat at either end of the unit. “Suicide prevention aides,” Janet explained. “They alert us to any self-destructive behavior. It’s the highest-paying jailhouse job,” she added. “Ten bucks for a forty-hour workweek.”

  Around the shower area there was a little drama as a Mental Health worker tried to persuade a newly admitted patient into showering. Not yet stabilized, the poor woman was filthy. With the promise of a few cigarettes, she relented. “Go on! Don’t forget the soap! Soap is your friend!” An officer stood by with clean clothes from the jail’s clothes box.

  Just like Officer Timlinson, these COs seemed kind and helpful, and Janet told me that these MO officers all had undergone training to understand the special needs of the mentally ill.

  “Now, let’s see,” Janet said, scratching her head. “Let’s find Annie Tilden. She’s a paranoid schizophrenic who stays to herself, and I’d like you to start working with her.”

  A CO jumped up to help out. At cell number three, she pounded on the door. “Tilden! You in there?”

  A pair of eyes darted out at us through the little window.

  “Get dressed and come out!” the officer ordered.

  Shortly, Annie Tilden emerged, looking a little woozy, as though she’d been sleeping.

  “Hello, Annie,” Janet said as we stepped up to meet her.

  Annie Tilden said nothing, but simply stared at Janet. Heavyset, with mocha-colored skin and wiry hair pulled back into a clip, she seemed mesmerized.

  “How are you feeling today?” Janet continued. “Taking your meds?”

  “Yes, Miss Waters,” she uttered robotically.

  “Good. Now, Annie, I’d like you to meet Miss Buser. She’s a student intern and she’s going to be working with you.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I offered.

  But Annie Tilden just looked at me with a blank expression.

  “So,” Janet continued, as if Annie had responded, “Miss Buser will be coming to see you. All right then, that’s all.”

  Annie Tilden started back to cell number three, but not before I tried to make some little connection with her. “I look forward to meeting with you!” But she never looked back, and the cell door slammed shut.

  “That’s okay,” said Janet. “A lot of schizophrenics don’t do well socially—nothing personal. Your relationship with her will be a lot different than women from GP. Focus on her medication. That’s what’s most important with the mentally ill. The two of you can go upstairs and talk. There’s a couple of empty cells up there that we use for sessions.”

  I looked up to the second tier, where Mental Health staff were chatting with patients in open-door cells. I hadn’t anticipated conducting therapy sessions inside a jail cell, but as Janet looked at me expectantly, I said, “Okay.”

  On our way out, we passed the rocking women peacefully planted in front of the TV. Janet shook her head. “When I first started working here, we had a few mentally ill inmates here and there, but now, the numbers are huge. They don’t belong in here. It’s no way for a civilized society to treat its mentally ill. But here they are. Jail’s their new home. It’s really sad.”

  3

  In the days that followed, my tour of the jail continued, and I met more key officers and clinic staff. But it was an afternoon agenda that I was most excited about, which was accompanying Janet to a support group for new mothers. During our orientations, we had learned that within the barricaded world of Rikers Island was a nursery. A pilot program, we were told, one of only three in the entire country. If a pregnant inmate gives birth while incarcerated, the baby can stay for a year, the idea being that it’s best for the baby to be with its mother for that first year. After that, though, the child must leave, before developing an awareness of its surroundings.

  We set out early one afternoon, trekking through the corridors until we reached what was obviously the nursery entrance, a door with a Mickey Mouse decal and the civility of a doorbell. Janet pushed the bell, and a female officer unlocked the door and led us down a narrow passageway where the delicate sounds of newborns echoed strangely off the concrete and steel. The passage opened into a softly lit, carpeted nursery, where kerchiefed mothers, most little more than teenagers, tended to their babies, bottle-feeding the infants, changing diapers, and patting the babies’ backs. Others were sitting in a glass-walled “living room,” tots on their laps. Outside the living room, neat rows of cribs were filled with stuffed animals and crocheted blankets. The cell doors that lined the walls—the cells where the mothers slept—were the only feature to remind us where we were.

  Nurses’ aides kept a watchful eye, and the nursery director supervised the operation from a windowed office. The nameplate on the window read “Camille Baxter, R.N.” Janet rapped on Baxter’s open door, and the nursery director hopped up from behind piles of papers to greet us. Fortyish, she wore red-framed eyeglasses, a white lab coat, and stylish high heels. She pumped my hand when Janet introduced us. “Welcome!” she beamed. “Glad you’re on board. These mothe
rs need all the support they can get. Living in the nursery is a big cut above general population, but it’s not an entitlement—it’s a privilege. If these girls don’t toe the line, they can be expelled and their baby sent home. Before they were arrested, most of them were out on the streets, using drugs, barely able to take care of themselves. Now they’re expected to be model inmates, model mothers, model people. It’s a tall leap, gets wild in here sometimes, doesn’t it, Janet?”

  But Janet just smiled and moved to the center of the nursery. “Ladies, group is starting!”

  In the living room, we joined the early arrivals, and following Janet’s lead, I sat down on the couch alongside the mothers, an arrangement that was cozier than I’d expected. But it felt natural, and I was immediately drawn to the babies, who cooed and gurgled, oblivious to their circumstances. Seated next to me, a dark-haired girl was cradling her baby for me to admire. “This is Teresita, my little pink princess.” Adorned in a pink satin headband, Teresita looked up from her bottle to give me a gummy little smile.

  “Nice to meet you, Teresita!”

  “And I’m Marisol,” her mother whispered as the room came to order.

  Janet started things off by introducing me to the group, who were semi-interested in my presence. Carmen smiled shyly; Tasha and Swanday, seated together at the end of the couch, shrugged. Addie and Michelle, both fussing with their babies, managed a quick wave. Kim and Josette stifled yawns but still nodded politely. The gangly Millie, with a neon orange pick planted atop thick tufts of hair, said, “Yeah, hi,” without looking up. And in a rocking chair angled off to the side was Lucy, who said nothing. Like the women in the halls, all of these mothers were Black or Hispanic.