Mr. Garcia said he loves anime and wishes the library brought more of it into Rikers. Mr. Velez, meanwhile, recently picked out a John Grisham book. And Mr. Ortiz said his favorite is biography.
Asked whose biography he was reading at the moment, he offered a sheepish laugh: “John Gotti.”
Lakythia Ferby, STRIVE’s vice president of programs, said one of the best aspects of the new program is combining different organizations’ areas of expertise.
“No one person can do it all, so we’re not trying to with this model,” Ms. Ferby said. “We’re really leveraging the New York Public Library, CUNY, we’re building on a lot of agency strengths to build a much more holistic strategy than any one of us can offer, rather than trying to recreate things that other people are already experts at.”
Like nearly everything that is happening on Rikers Island today, the classes are not without controversy. Norman Seabrook—the outspoken president of the Correction Officer Benevolent Association who has been critical of many reform efforts underway—took issue with the inmates who participate earning $15 a week.
“I think that the agency should not use tax payers dollars to shell out to inmates that have allegedly committed some of the most violent crimes in NY,” Mr. Seabrook said in a statement e-mailed to the Observer. “Once you start paying them for their crimes and the money stops what’s next? How about enforcing law and order and applying the rules and regulations before a member losses his or her life under this administration. Or one better how about distributing funds to the victims that doesn’t have a mother, father or child anymore because of some of these inmates. Maybe they can use a loaf of bread or pair of pants.”
Mr. Walsh, the deputy commissioner, compared the payments to the money inmates at Rikers can earn for working jobs on the island.
“My feeling is that for many of the inmates, they could benefit from being in the programs rather than working—so this is like their job,” Mr. Walsh said.
So far, the program is underway only at GMDC—which recently also served as a pilot for a reclassification of how likely inmates are to commit violence in jail—and it’s too new for there to be definitive evidence of whether the department is achieving its goal of reducing violence. (The day the Observer visited, there had been a lockdown at the jail—a sign not all interaction in GMDC is as good-natured and friendly as the atmosphere in Mr. Horton’s classroom.)
But so far, Mr Walsh said, so good.
“I had a conversation with one of the staff members on Friday to take a look at the first couple of weeks, the attendance week and the rate of infraction,” Mr. Walsh said. “While I don’t have hard data, I’m very encouraged by what I know it to be, and the numbers look very good.”
For the inmates, it’s an opportunity to get out of their cells—and to show that they’re not all interested in causing the trouble that so frequently dominates the headlines about Rikers and draws Mr. Seabrook’s frustration. Asked what he’d want people outside to know about the classes he’s taking, Mr. Velez, one of the inmates, said he’d want people to know they were doing something productive with themselves.
“We’re not just here wasting away, being forgotten by outside. We’re trying to better ourselves, instead of being here doing nothing,” Mr. Velez said. “We’re not all violent people. We’re not all in here committing crimes. We’re in here trying to do something, and if given he chance, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Article Appeared @http://observer.com/2015/07/inside-the-new-classes-aimed-at-reducing-violence-at-rikers-island/