Even before opening to the first page, I suspected that an oral history of Rikers would be fraught because of who gets to speak. Would it just be those who suffered? Or would we hear from guards and how they treated people? ... Rikers answers those questions by demonstrating that there is not a single story of the place ... But Rikers is far more than just a collection of the stories of people who have served time there or worked there ... These pages, in their purposeful lack of objectivity and their specificity, become, through the sheer number of maddeningly similar tales, more honest than a piece of scholarship might ever be. The cacophony becomes not the story of any particular person but that of the brick and mortar and barbed wire of a disaster built on a garbage dump ... Unflinching.
A bit chaotic, as oral histories tend to be. But the chaos feels true to the experience of prison; this impressive book throws a lot at you, and much of the reading is difficult ... Intensely moving.
At 425 pages, the sheer number of voices in the book sometimes become repetitive and the speakers sometimes are incoherent. Nonetheless, the assembly of testimony presents a powerful portrait of a failed institution.
The authors create a vivid picture of what life on the island is like ... I appreciated the juxtaposed perspectives, which capture the complexity of life on the island.
Stunning ... Rayman and Blau provide eye-opening statistics and history lessons, while letting the voices of their interviewees take center stage. It’s a must-read for anyone interest in criminal justice reform.
