The intake area at C-76 [a building housing inmates serving “city time” sentences of a year or less] features the same dirty and decrepit pens one finds throughout the chain of custody. Jarrod was uncuffed and herded into one pen with a putrid, un-flushable toilet and a sleeping man whose tray of food, stripped only of its meat, was being devoured by a swarm of flies.

Next, we turned our money over by feeding it into an electronic machine that resembled a MetroCard dispenser, got photographed, and turned over our civilian clothing. We were then ordered to strip to our underwear and hover above a BOSS chair, which looks a bit like a drugstore blood pressure machine but can supposedly identify metal contraband stored in the anus and mouth. We were then led into a small booth, open on one side, and told to remove our underwear and squat down, exposing our anuses. The visual inspection does not actually reveal any contraband unless the new arrival has been very careless, and is far more about the performance of guard vigilance and inmate subservience. 

After the strip search, we received “greens,” ill-fitting forest green jumpsuits stamped “DOC” [Department of Correction] in six-inch white letters across the back, and so-called Air Patakis [in ironic honor of longtime law-and-order Governor George Pataki], flimsy, flat-bottomed Velcro shoes with no arch support. Generally speaking, Patakis run large, and all the clothes run small. Nothing really fits.

We got dressed and were ordered to escort ourselves to the clinic down the hall. It was an introduction to the fairly lax transport practices at C-76, where inmates are sometimes allowed to simply roam the halls unescorted. David got his first glimpse of DOC’s disorganization during his initial clinic visit. He was paired with one nurse who asked him a battery of questions about medical conditions, addictions, and so on, and then asked him to step into a bathroom and provide a urine sample. When he came out, he was paired with another nurse who asked him the exact same questions. A few days later, he was sent to the clinic again, only to repeat the entire process because his blood and urine samples had apparently been misplaced.

In the days after our arrival, we received the second half of the institutional intake, in which we were instructed by demonstration how the facility was to be run. We learned that rules and policies were selectively enforced, and often just made up, depending on the day and the CO [correction officer] in charge. A common motto within the DOC describes the job as “care, custody, and control.” One CO during Jarrod’s time spelled out exactly what this means on Rikers: “It’s called ‘care, custody, and control’: I don’t care, you’re in my custody, and I’m in control.”

The COs’ rule by belligerent force begins immediately and constitutes the most visceral aspect of institutional intake. Those arriving are often berated by COs for their personal hygiene, humiliated in front of other inmates with a variety of schoolyard taunts, and warned in harsh tones to do what they are told, not cause any trouble, and basically “shut the fuck up,” as some COs were quick to command. Questions of any kind about how the house functions are generally treated by COs as a major inconvenience, or else eyed suspiciously. 

When David, newly arrived, asked a CO how to sign up for a clinic visit, she responded with disgust that he was “a real smart-ass” and simply walked away. On a more basic level, the freedom to not care about inmates’ basic needs, except when the spirit moves them, is a coveted part of Rikers COs’ daily work. 

This applied to daily schedules, which were hopelessly opaque. The times for elective daily activities like sick call or law library were not announced in advance, and often conflicted, with no warning or recourse. Inmates, for example, had to decide if going to sick call, their daily chance to (maybe) see a doctor, was worth possibly missing their daily trip to the yard, if it was called while they were out. And if they missed sick call because they could not hear the announcement over the impossibly loud dormitory noise, it was their fault for not paying attention. Everything was called abruptly, as inmates who had been waiting around for hours were suddenly summoned with excited shouts, belittled for taking too long, and threatened with being left behind.

With no efficient system in place for addressing the dormitories, COs simply bellow commands on the spot, and become incensed when they are not immediately followed by inmates who often cannot even hear them. Meanwhile, the COs very publicly prioritize small talk among themselves, often loud and without concern for being overheard, over the needs of inmates, however pressing.

Though DOC policy calls for daily orientation sessions to be conducted by COs for all newly arrived inmates, neither of us ever saw or even heard of such a thing at Rikers, nor had anyone we met while incarcerated there. On the contrary, most of what we learned about the institution from COs we gleaned not from their explicit instruction but by watching them operate. 

When pressed for explanations, COs most often default to a parental “because I said so.” They do this partly because it is simply easier for COs to bark commands than explain themselves, which enables them to tailor their work to whatever is easiest and most convenient for them, inmate needs be damned. It also derives from the COs’ quasi-military structure, in which those who interact with inmates mostly fall at the bottom of a harsh chain of command, and receive similarly unqualified orders on a last-minute, need-to-know basis. In this sense, COs simply extend this hierarchy to their relations with inmates, rudeness and all.

This command over daily life becomes so powerful that many COs become accustomed to dictating the very nature of reality. When Jarrod took a urine test in the clinic, the CO told him to place the cup on top of the blue trash can, and pointed to a red trash can. Jarrod hesitated for a split second, looking at the can, and then at the CO. “Put it on the red trash can!” the CO emphasized, as if he had said that the first time. Flummoxed, Jarrod complied, and received a look as if to say, “Was that so difficult to understand?” Similarly, Jarrod was dispatched to the mail room, and having not received mail for several days, hastened to make it there within a matter of minutes, only to find nobody inside. Upon his return, he was told, “You must have taken too long to get there.”

This attitude in particular is the cornerstone of the longstanding practice among Rikers COs of covering up their own transgressions, including violence against incarcerated people, by getting their stories straight with their coworkers, and converting their lies into institutional truths through the alchemy of paperwork. 

About a month into his sentence, David tried to give a small load of laundry to the institutional laundry services. The CO scowled and turned away, saying, “Can’t you just wash it yourself?” Incidents like this are emblematic of a CO mindset based around abdicating the responsibility they are hired to take on, especially the “care” portion of the department’s motto, and becoming indignant when asked to fulfill it. Most new arrivals, therefore, are left to rely on other inmates.

David Campell is a writer and translator and Jarrod Shanahan is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Governors State University. On different occasions, each served sentences at Rikers Island arising from arrests at political protests. This excerpt from their book, City Time: On Being Sentenced to Rikers Island, is re-published here with their permission and that of their publisher, New York University Press. 

Photo by: Doc Searls