TOW #17 - Before the Law

                Nearly six years ago, Kalief Browder was arrested while on his way home with a friend.  He was placed in handcuffs and told he was being taken in for robbing a Mexican immigrant of his backpack three days prior.  Browder knew he was innocent, and maintained this innocence for the three years he endured on Rikers, the island that houses New York City's main prisons.  With almost almost eight hundred days in solitary confinement, Browder is now living his days attempting to forget what occurred in the years that stole his adolescence.   Although some would argue it's nearly impossible to improve these conditions in a city of eight million, the conditions of the jails are inhumane, and the constitutional amendments we seemingly all have, are not being explicitly provided to each and every person.
                 For starters, Browder details the abuse the inmates endured at the hands of the guards.  These guards, supposedly the peace keepers and guardians of the group of young men, "had an agreement with the gang members" that controlled R.N.D.C (where Browder was housed).  In addition after lining the men up and beating them, "they made it clear that, if the inmates went to the clinic and told the medical staff what had happened, they would write up charges against them, and get them sent to solitary confinement".  These guards did not use force when it was necessary, they used force when they felt it would be entertaining and beneficial for themselves.  The corrupted system doesn't account for these issues, yet it should.  A man who is arrested on charges, be him innocent or guilty, can not be afraid for his life at the hands of the people supposedly protecting him.
                Browder, during his three years on Rikers, spent almost eight hundred days in solitary confinement. "Between 2007 and mid-2013, the total number of solitary-confinement beds on Rikers increased by more than sixty per cent, and a report last fall found that nearly twenty-seven per cent of the adolescent inmates were in solitary."  Solitary confinement is detrimental to a person's mental health, and Browder is still recovering from the time spent there.  He attempted suicide multiple times while in solitary confinement.  This good kid, from a good family, who had committed no crime, was now attempting to end his life with a sharpened piece of plastic from the one bucket he was given for his time on the island.  The issues within the social justice system must be accounted for, and the life taken away from Browder must not be taken away from more young men in this way again.

Kalief Browder committed suicide at his home in the Bronx in June of 2015.