Dear gods. On theguardian:
When Inmate H, a teenager serving time at New York’s Rikers Island, fell asleep during a class, a female corrections officer wrapped metal handcuffs around her fist and hit him in the ribcage to rouse him. The tactic worked – Inmate H woke abruptly and shouted an obscenity at the officer. For this, he was: dragged into the corridor; punched in the eye; kicked in the face, head and back repeatedly by multiple officers; kicked in the mouth; and pepper-sprayed directly into the eyes. While the horror show was unfolding, two teachers inside the classroom reported that they heard the young prisoner screaming out, crying for his mother.
[...]
Of all the revelations in the 79-page report, three stood out to me:
- On any given day in 2014, there are nearly 500 teenagers aged between 16 and 18 years old serving time or awaiting court hearings on Rikers Island.
- Around 51% of this teenage population have been diagnosed with a mental illness.
- Fully 90.9% of the corrections officers who started working at the youth jail on Rikers in 2012 were on their first assignment from the training academy.
Rest: theguardian.
