Americans are hyper-sensitive right now to videos and images of the split-second police killings of African Americans in the streets. We’re less sensitive, or less aware, of the slow killings of African Americans that happen in jails, prisons, and penitentiaries every day. The story of Kalief Browder may change that.
Browder was arrested on highly questionable charges of stealing a backpack when he was 16 years old, then sent to the New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail to await a trial that never happened. His mother, Venida, was unable to post his bond, and his father had abandoned the family. As a result, Kalief spent three hard years in Rikers, the majority of them in solitary confinement. Two years after his release from jail—after prosecutors failed to bring a case against him—Kalief committed suicide. He couldn’t escape the trauma and stress that followed him from his stint in the sordid jail, even as he embarked upon a campaign to expose all of the evils occurring within the corrections facility.
[For more of this story, written by Brentin Mock, go to https://www.citylab.com/crime/...eps-fighting/518520/]
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