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By Gabby Shacknai New York City has announced major reforms to Rikers Island, America’s second largest jail. The reforms were spurred in part by the death of Kalief Browder, a former Rikers inmate who was accused of stealing a backpack at age 16. Browder was held at Rikers for 1,000 days without a trial, most of it in solitary confinement, before he was released. Browder died by suicide in early June. “Almost everything that could go wrong in the criminal justice system had happened to him,” Jennifer Gonnerman, a reporter for “The New Yorker” who profiled Bowder during his three years there, said. The charges against Browder were ultimately dropped. But during his jail time, he was abused by inmates and guards and suffered mental trauma from solitary confinement, she said. Rikers’s treatment of teenage inmates has also brought criticism from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who released a report last August detailing the conditions in the adolescent jail. Bharara’s involvement, along with a class action lawsuit from him and inmates, helped propel the reforms, Gonnerman said. The changes include a new federal monitor to oversee the jail, new guidelines for the treatment of underage inmates, new policies on when guards can use force and the instillation of 7,800 new surveillance cameras. At least a quarter of the new measures will be in place by July 1, 2016.

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Warm up questions

1. What is Rikers Island?


2. What is solitary confinement?

Critical thinking questions

1. According to the report, what are some of the effects of solitary confinement?


2. Who was Kalief Browder and what does his story tell us about the justice and prison system?


3. Do you think that these new measures will be effective? Why or why not?