Rikers

An Oral History

By: Graham Rayman, Reuven Blau

Narrated by: Nathan Agin, Jonathan Beville, Nancy Bober, Gisela Chipe, Mx. Nicky Endres, James Fouhey, Philip Hernandez, Cary Hite, Eric Jason Martin, Kamali Minter, Karen Murray, Jose T. Nateras, Kiiri Sandy

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A shocking, groundbreaking oral history of the infamous Rikers jail complex and an unflinching portrait of injustice and resilience told by the people whose lives have been forever altered by it

“This mesmerizing and gut-wrenching book shows the brutal realities that tens of thousands of people have been forced to navigate, and survive, in America’s most notorious jail.”—Piper Kerman, New York Times bestselling author of Orange is the New Black

A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

What happens when you pack almost a dozen jails, bulging at the seams with society’s cast-offs, onto a spit of landfill purposefully hidden from public view? Prize-winning journalists Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau have spent two years interviewing more than 130 people comprising a broad cross section of lives touched by New York City's Rikers Island prison complex—from incarcerated people and their relatives, to officers, lawyers, and commissioners, with stories spanning the 1970s to the present day. The portrait that emerges calls into question the very nature of justice in America.

Offering a 360-degree view inside the country’s largest detention complex, the deeply personal accounts—featured here for the first time—take listeners on a harrowing journey into every corner of Rikers, a failed society unto itself that reflects society’s failings as a whole.

Dr. Homer Venters was shocked by the screams on his first day working at Rikers: “They’re in solitary, just yelling . . . the yelling literally never stops.” After a few months, though, Dr. Venters notes, one's ears adjust to the sounds. Nestor Eversley recalls how detainees made weapons from bones. Barry Campbell recalls hiding a razor blade in his mouth—“just in case”.

These are visceral stories of despair, brutality, resilience, humor, and hope, told by the people who were marooned on the island over the course of decades. As calls to shutter jails and reduce the number of incarcerated people grow louder across the country, with the movement to close the island complex itself at the forefront, Rikers is a resounding lesson about the human consequences of the incarceration industry.

©2023 Graham Rayman, Reuven Blau (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“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. . . . Rayman and Blau begin each chapter with some of the most informative and wide-ranging writing on the kaleidoscopic effects of incarceration. . . . Each page demands that you ask: What do I do with this knowledge?”—The Washington Post

“This impressive book throws a lot at you. . . . The authors are apparently excellent interviewers. They get people to say extraordinary things. . . . Reading Rikers, you begin to understand those who have called for closing the prison entirely. . . . The final chapters of this book are intensely moving.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“In Rikers, Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau shatter a century-old code of silence by skillfully amplifying the words of the people who have been there—those who have been detained in horrific conditions, those who work there in desperate circumstances, and those who are responsible for an institution where it costs more than half a million dollars a year to incarcerate one person. This mesmerizing and gut-wrenching book shows the brutal realities that tens of thousands of people have been forced to navigate, and survive, in America’s most notorious jail.”—Piper Kerman, New York Times bestselling author of Orange Is the New Black

Not worth the credit.

It’s just people’s experiences, vaguely arranged by theme? Barely any history and after three chapters, all the stories basically sound the same. I’d skip this if given the choice again.

The real Rikers

This book caught my attention because I love Law and Order SVU and they talk about Rikers all the time. I'd say their depiction is accurate, although not in depth. I appreciate honest accounts of people's experiences. It was very enlightening.

I loved this but it could have been more

This was an outstanding book, very, very much worth your time. I have been fairly critical in my star ratings because I think that it could’ve been much much more. I have recently reread, “and the band played on” about the. HIV epidemic in the 1980s. That book did a masterful job interweaving histories, both oral and written about the entire epidemic. The Rikers book missed an opportunity here to tell a more cohesive narrative. Instead of seeking a through line and using witnesses to tell an overall tale of Rikers, they have chosen to use thematic groupings of interviews. This method has produced a powerful, but disjointed tale of a troubled and absolutely terrifying institution. I think that the disjointed nature of detail, however, takes away from its overall power. I learned a lot about Rikers and about institutional racism and about the prison system in New York City from this book. That was my goal, and mission very well accomplished. I would love to see this book, integrated into a larger work of reportage, that tells, and even deeper and truer tale about Raiker’s, about it’s inmates, about it’s jailers, and about the people in City Hall, who appear to give very little importance to the way that we treat our prisoners. Overall, an outstanding book that could’ve been so much more.

Riveting first person accounts

This book captures the good, the bad, and the ugly of Rikers through first person perspectives of many individuals. Being Rikers, we're talking about a lot of bad and ugly.

Reform Needed

Great story. Love to hear the individual situations but it definitely made me frustrated with the Dept of Corrections.

Great book!

As a brother who did a skid bid there once this book is legit.

This is an important book

This book really brings you into the world of Rikers. It allows you to hear the voices of the people who lived the experience. The authors do a great job of letting those individuals such as administrators, guards, inmates, and families speak for themselves and tell their stories. Many of their accounts are horrible, but in my opinion important to hear, as it raises the question of how we should best deal with our penal system. I highly recommend this book.

Insightful but long

Interesting stories by inmates and correctional officers. It could and should have been shorter though, 1/3 of the stories would have been enough. OK book. Set the speed to 1.6/1.7.

Guard

You have guard stories in this book that will completely rotten people that are lying. You should do better research I heard a God say something in there this person was human feces got off on torturing people and you wanna know his experience. It seems to me this book was written by people who would've interviewed Hitler and made him look good.

Bunch of people who can’t take responsibility.

People saying “ not my fault I am an addict! “ “not my fault I broke the law.”