At first you think it is a figure of speech but then you realize it really happens. Another male prisoner comments how he was "born in prison". The other had a miscarriage although they wouldn't tell her why or let her see the body. The female prison was especially sad since many of them were pregnant and one of the mothers gave birth in the prison. For the others, it seems highly cruel punishment to lock up emotionally unbalanced people in solitary confinement, it is too bad that we can't somehow identify the Eddie Whites and somehow rehabilitate the others who just seem lost, desperate, poor and lonely. Many of the prisoners just seem emotionally messed up people, depressed and unloved, but other like the "Eddie White" guy just seems to actually enjoy playing the legal system and what you would call a "bad apple". I think much of footage was "softened" by the fact that the guards and prisoners were on best behavior for the cameras. Certainly, this is recommended viewing, but not for the weak of heart. This documentary remains vital, poignant and moving. Though at writing this film is a decade and a half old, this writer doesn't imagine things on Riker's have changed, save for the worse. ![]() If nothing else, this is yet another indictment of both the American prison system and the American economic system, both of which conspire to keep poor, uneducated people poor and uneducated.and in prison. Many of the inmates on Riker's, as we see here, are charged but not yet convicted, some are mentally ill, MANY are drug addicts in dire need of rehabilitation more than incarceration, some of the women are pregnant and give birth in the prison (there were, at the time of filming, twice as many births as deaths on Riker's) and most are very poor. If youre arrested in New York City and cant make bail, youll be sent to Rikers Island-a mammoth holding. Documentary about the Rikers Island prison. ![]() Sprinkled throughout the film footage are numerous startling facts and statistics dealing both with Riker's in specific and the American prison system in general. NR 1 hr 15 min Jan 1st, 1994 Documentary. In spite of this, we are given chilling insight into the truly awful conditions in which these people live. ![]() At times the narrative is a little choppy and the camera work is entirely freehand. It tries in an hour and a half to cover the various buildings and prisoner-groups housed across the island. This is a fairly frank (if somewhat dated now) look at prisoners' life within the prison system on Riker's Island in New York. It wasn't, but I'm certainly glad I saw it anyway. In all honesty, I started watching this on the suspicion that it may have been the source of comedian Chris Rock's 'Salad-Tossin' Man' routine.
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