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Abstract: 

This article is excerpted from a forthcoming book by Mary Buser who has worked in various mental health positions on Rikers Island. The author notes, “I worked in the Rikers Mental Health Department as a psychiatric social worker for five and a half years, leaving Rikers in 2000. I started off as a student intern in the island’s sole women’s jail. . .[and] returned to Rikers to work in a maximum security men’s jail. . .[then] was promoted to assistant chief of Mental Health in another jail, where I supervised treatment to the island’s most severely mentally ill inmates. From there, I was transferred to my fourth and final jail, which was connected to the “Central Punitive Segregation Unit,” aka, the Bing. Here, I supervised a mental health team in treating inmates held in solitary confinement–determining whether or not someone warranted a temporary reprieve based on the likelihood of a completed suicide. Although I had become disillusioned with the criminal justice system, the Bing was my Rikers undoing.”

Keywords: solitary confinement; Rikers Island

Affiliations:  .