As I mentioned, one of my childhood friends recently landed himself in Riker's Island, after an incident here in BK that culminated with shots being fired and my friend now facing several felonies.
Now I knew quite a few people that ended up in Riker's before, ranging from family to friends and acquaintances. As my Criminal Law professor once remarked, apparently I grew up in an unusually crime-rich circle for a semi-gentrified (like it was at that time) neighborhood like Park Slope, since so many individuals I knew over the years were involved in pretty much every dirty dealing you can imagine. However, this is really the first time that a person who I care enough about to visit in prison has wound up there.
It's funny just how little information is out there to prepare you for what you should or shouldn't do when going to visit someone on the Island. After reviewing what I could find on the net, I took the ride a couple of Saturdays ago to 'The Island.'
The only way visitors can access Riker's is by getting yourself to the beginning of 'The Bridge,' which is where the billboard pictured above is located. The neighborhood across from Riker's (Elmhurst) is actually a nice place, quiet and full of small residential homes. Once you get to the beginning of the bridge, you
must ride a city bus, the Q101, across to the visitors' center. Just luckily I had my Metrocard on me after making that drive, so I didn't have to double back to find an ATM since I never have cash on me these days.
Once you're at the visitors' center, you're informed that there's no cell phones allowed in the facility, and that you'll have to use a locker which - you guessed it - costs money. Since the lockers conveniently only take quarters, and since there's also no way of making change, the CO's just tell you to wait around for the next busload of people to come in, and ask someone to help you out. Luckily again, an old Spanish lady sympathized with me, and I didn't have to wait for the next group to come in.
After passing through a Star Trek-looking metal detector, you get frisked manually. After that, you're in the center, which looks kind of like a filthy Greyhound terminal. On the walls there are posters saying stuff like "Plan Ahead For Your Future!" and "Take Advantage of New York City Programs Designed to Help You," which seemed to be directed at inmates, although many of the people visiting looked like they could/would be inmates anyway. On the way over on the bus, two of my fellow visitors, one of whom was a LARGE black chick holding a baby, ended up in a fistfight over something I didn't catch.
The center is divided up into sections where you wait to ride a bus to take you to the respective 'house' where your inmate is being held. Once you check in with the CO at the 'ticket counter,' you're on your way in a Corrections Department school bus over the prison grounds to see your inmate.
On the bus ride, I was actually surprised to see there were quite a few other white people riding besides myself - a tubby old Russian-looking guy, two Irish-Italian Staten Island type ladies (looked like a mother-daughter or mother-in-law and wife pair), and also a white lady in her 50s wearing corduroys and galoshes who looked like the last person I would expect would have family in prison.
I was also surprised at the large Hispanic showing - lots of very cute young Dominican girls there to visit their boyfriends, as well as mothers and wives. I assume that most all of the guys were in there for drugs.
Once we arrived at the center, we piled off the bus, got sniffed twice by a drug dog, and then waited in another bus terminal-like building full of lockers, where a big bold sign informs you that if you are found past the cell doors during your second pat down with any cash money or cigarettes in your pocket, you will be arrested IMMEDIATELY. Underneath was a few photos of guys who had been slashed with razors, with their faces blurred out, saying "This is what could happen to your loved one if you bring in contraband to them."
When all was said and done, before they would even let me through the cell doors, I ended up having to throw my hoodie sweatshirt, diamond studs, wallet, and gum, into a locker.
Of course that wasn't before we were kept waiting for an hour in the terminal area. After awhile it became obvious to me that every non-white visitor that rode on our bus to the center was sent in before I and the few other white people were. A short while later, the older white lady with galoshes came up to me and said "You were on the bus with me, weren't you?" "Yeah," I replied. "We're the only ones still waiting out here," then she lowered her voice to a whisper, "...and we're the only white people here." I told her that I noticed the same coincidence.
All the CO's working at the center were black, with one Spanish girl. I guess that's their way of evening things out a little in their mind.
When the next busload came in, I got a glimpse of a real 'jailhouse tranny' who I guess was there to visit her man. He/she was a dark skin Spanish individual dressed like a teenager with tights and a tube top, bleached blond hair, and was prancing around giggling while the CO's teased it. I overheard him/her telling one of the CO's "Your hair looks fly" and "I think Imma get another tattoo when I go home today."
When I finally did get into the lockup and past the second pat down, I entered a big room which looked a lot like a high school gymnasium, filled with a bunch of brightly colored Little Tykes kiddie furniture. Sitting all around were a large number of pretty rough looking individuals talking with their visitors. Again, lots of Spanish, a few whites, and very few blacks. When I asked my friend later about the demographics, he said that actually blacks were the majority inside - however, for some reason they usually didn't get visitors.
After a few minutes of waiting my friend came out in his green jumpsuit, white socks, and sandals. He shaved his head and put on at least 10-15lbs of muscle weight since the last time I had seen him months before, he said he had been working out a lot and of course he hadn't had access to drugs in the pen (not that they weren't available [since the CO's do a pretty good job of getting them in, as I learned from another friend who was a CO], just that they were too expensive for him to afford). He said what he really wanted was some moonshine, which I thought was pretty funny.
Now, even with the added weight my friend is not a big guy by any means - half-Irish half-Puerto Rican, about 5'9, probably around 150-60lbs. Despite that though he said he hadn't had any significant problems inside, aside from having to threaten a couple guys who tried to test him. My friend confirmed, just like I always assumed, that handling yourself in jail has almost nothing to do with size, and everything to do with jailhouse mindgames.
It kind of reminds me of a pack of dogs or wolves - when put together, they quickly work out a 'pecking order,' and no one is immune from it. The only way to stay 'out of it' is to stand up for yourself, which means you're never really out of it because people are going to constantly test you. Doing something violent that will add more time to your sentence, in the long run, may be a very smart move. Of course my friend knew this going into the situation and was prepared to deal with any situation.
Across the aisle from me and my friend was the tubby Russian-looking man who I had rode in with, with what looked to me to be his son, a small kid of around 22. My friend told me that the kid had been robbed inside a few days before. I then realized that's probably why the father had brought in a bag full of clothes and sneakers for him. Down the aisle, the tranny I had been waiting with started to make out with her Latin Lover inmate boyfriend. My friend and I started cracking up, and then our time was up.
My friend's court date was today, March 12, not even a half block away from my school in downtown Brooklyn. While I was in class learning how to practice law, he was before the judge learning what happens when you break the law. It's no secret, like Kool G Rap said,
"You might be coolin, you might be stylin
But you won't be smilin'... on Riker's ISLAND"
