 Want an e-mail when there's something new? Join the e-mail news list today! selected writing From Ramallah to Rikers Island (Part 7) BACK IN THE BULLPENS IN SEARCH OF LOWER BAIL
23 February 2007 — A long and painful day spent in the bullpen system between Rikers Island and the Manhattan Criminal Court. The object of all of this has been to get bail reduced to a manageable amount of around $2,000 from the original $8,000. This finally happened two days ago, during a similar trip to court. The judge ruled that if we posted bail today and surrendered my passport[1], I would be released. And today, we stood in court and heard that decision fulfilled. It was an amazing victory after almost a month spent in jail and a month incarcerated in the hospital before that. Usually, said the Corrections Officers and lawyers present, as it was only 3.00PM, I would be on the streets in a few hours or so. I had seen people released like this directly from court several times. Of course, this process was not to go smoothly.
THE ADA'S MANIPULATION After searching my home for several hours between the two court dates, a friend established that my passport was not there. The Assistant District Attorney's office admitted—only on the second court date after my friend had spent hours frantically searching—that they already had the passport in their possession, from the raid on my home. When going to pay bail, the friend made a Herculean effort at the window to pay, to be told for several hours that "the documentation is not here". Back in the bullpen system by this time, with no access to information, I had no idea why bail wasn't imminent and why I hadn't been released. When I realized I was heading back for Rikers that night, the misery sunk in.[2]
Back in the bullpens on Rikers, one African American inmate who introduces himself as "Wolf" questioned me about my experience of prison. A month into the experience, I had a lot to say to him, and he smiled as he realized that I was no believer in the penal system as it stood.[3] Bullpens may have been designed for efficiently sorting and and separating through large numbers of detainees, but they are being used for a whole different purpose. Add to that the chaos generated by lazy guards who leave people in pens to avoid end of shift work, and you are left in a hellish place if compressed, endless time, bottled anger, and potential violence.[4] Standing in a crowded cage with 50 or 100 exhausted and stressed-out men, who had been through an entire day in similar circumstances, and knowing your bed was only a few hundred yards away yet still being kept there needlessly for hours, you have to wonder what we are communicating to these constitutionally innocent men. There is something fundamentally wrong about all of this institutionalized disrespect and negation that becomes its own crime, modeling to prisoners destructive ways of relating to others even as they are punished for the assumption that they have been doing the same thing. Oppressive Victorian-era iron bars and walls. Time stopped. No clocks. People spending days in bullpens, dazed and confused, not knowing when they will be moved elsewhere or even where they are going. Desperate men pleading for toilet paper or water from uncaring Corrections Officers, who alternate negation with screaming.[5]
Claustrophobia from the stuffiness of cells. People freaking out and getting panicked from the undefined long periods of confinement. A desperately swirling crowd trying to avoid two men in the center who explode to tear each other down in a mini Thunderdome, with the crowd lost in raw emotions of expectation, excitement and fear. "People outside," Wolf tells me, "need to know how they treat us in here." I look around and I can't agree more. Society is burning lives in here, permanently twisting personalities, and keeping it all out of sight and out of mind. [ends] "San Quentin" by Johnny Cash San Quentin, you've been livin' hell to me You've hosted me since nineteen sixty three I've seen 'em come and go and I've seen them die And long ago I stopped askin' why San Quentin, I hate every inch of you. You've cut me and have scarred me thru an' thru. And I'll walk out a wiser weaker man; Mister Congressman why can't you understand. San Quentin, what good do you think you do? Do you think I'll be different when you're through? You bent my heart and mind and you may my soul, And your stone walls turn my blood a little cold. San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell. May your walls fall and may I live to tell. May all the world forget you ever stood. And may all the world regret you did no good. San Quentin, you've been livin' hell to me. GO TO "FROM RAMALLAH TO RIKERS ISLAND" (SERIES EPILOGUE) Endnotes 1. I was required to surrender my passport as a condition for bail because one of the people pressing charges against me had asserted that I was "likely to flee the country". This was ridiculous, as I had lived in the U.S. since 1998, and had long ago applied for and received permanent residency status. During the court dates in which this condition was announced, one of the Assistant District Attorney's prosecuting team said that I was "a flight risk" and that they had been advised by one of those pressing charges that I "was likely to free to Palestine or Britain". As gratifying as it was during this whole process to hear U.S. government officials call the country "Palestine"—which spoke volumes about which of those pressing charges was pressurizing the prosecutors to make life as miserable as possible for me—it was laugh out funny to me that anyone thought I had any intention of going back to either shit hole. And for what reason would I flee? I already knew at that point, even if I was currently lost in a Kafka-esque nightmare, that the charges would not ultimately hold up. One of the people pressing charges against me could only complain of two days of unsolicited e-mail while I was having a mental breakdown, none of which contained any "threats" as claimed. I knew the "evidence" they had against me was weak when held up against what was being claimed, so what reason would there have been for me to run? These were misdemeanor charges. Fleeing them would have turned those petty matters into a felony, and both the U.K. and Israel (where I was supposed to be fleeing to) has extradition agreements with the U.S. None of it made any sense, and none of it was worthy of the breathless tone with which the prosecutors spoke about me in court. It was pathetic. [Back to where you left off] 2. I had—against all the evidence of the last two months—fallen back on false hope in the system after hearing the good news. The depths of trust in other human beings takes a lot to dislodge, even if you have systematically experienced no reason to for a prolonged period. [Back to where you left off] 3. My opposition to the U.S. penal system by this point was not based on any personal greivance but rather on the obvious overall targeting of the poor and non-white population of the country for the obvious benefit of mostly white politicians at the expense of all Americans, although it would be fair to say that my personal experiences certainly drew a highlighting pen over all of that. I expanded on this in the footnotes of part 1 (open those footnotes in new window to recap). [Back to where you left off] 4. During one of the court dates following my release from Rikers, my lawyer told me that people who worked in the criminal justice system actually had a term to describe this—"bullpen therapy". There was a widely held understanding amongst prisoners that much of the harm that was leveled at them was intentional punishment on the part of the guards and others who staff the court system, which was certainly my experience. In this case, I'd heard guards laughing and using this phrase while going through the bullpen system myself. [Back to where you left off] 5. There is a pink-faced cracker corrections officer who staffs the intake room in Rikers, where both new prisoners and prisoners returning from court must pass through. He exemplified the screaming in your face mentality and was one of the guards who clearly relished his power. Another was a Ms. White, a black female C.O. who staffed Two Main when I was in that dorm. Neither of these individuals should have any responsibility that gives them any power over other human beings. White actually incited a mob of prisoners to attack me, when she falsely told a large, angry, detoxing African American inmate that I had verbally abused her in a racial manner, when I had been nothing but polite to her for several days on end in the hope of getting either a cup or a blanket. The incident was defused, but not before I found myself confronted by a mob of black inmates and surrounded by several white inmates to back me up. The whole scene was sickening for all the obvious reasons. It was defused when I didn't retaliate, and explained to one of the black dorm leaders that she had just plain lied. Another white male C.O., who had been watching her actions, said to her in front of everyone, "What the hell are you trying to do, start a riot?" And she had been. [Back to where you left off] GO TO "FROM RAMALLAH TO RIKERS ISLAND" (SERIES EPILOGUE) more from this section  • Unreasonable Search and Seizure (Sunday, June 1st, 2008)  • From Ramallah to Rikers Island (Part 1) (Tuesday, April 1st, 2008) |
      
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