Kalief Browder Research Papers

Eight hundred days… eight hundred days in solitary confinement, for stealing a backpack. No, not stealing a backpack, he was never proven guilty. In fact, there was never even a trail over this stolen backpack. Eight hundred days of solitary confinement for a sixteen-year-old who never committed the crime. This sixteen-year-old’s name is Kalief Browder. On May 25th, 1993, Kalief Browder was born already addicted to cocaine and taken away from his mother. Vineda and Everett Browder adopted him and his biological brothers Deion and Kamal. Kalief grew up with his five siblings in the Bronx, New York City (Furst). At the age of eleven or twelve Browder’s adoptive father had left the family. It was then that he started looking for a “family”

This is a prison that is well-known for its violence (Press TV). Gangs ran Riker’s and correction officers did little to nothing about it. He was sent to the area for the adolescents which held those convicted from the ages of sixteen to eighteen. Because of the well-known violence that adolescents caused guards referred to them as “animal-ecents. (Furst)” Death is quite common on Riker’s Island. One of the executive producers of Time: The Kalief Browder Story is Shawn “Jay Z” Carter. In this docuseries he recalls a friend of his who was killed over phone time on Riker’s Island. “I’ve seen this story many times in my life. Some have come home from Riker’s Island with pride, a badge of honor like, I’ve been to Riker’s Island and then, you know, I’ve come home so now I’m this badass, you know.” Corruption in these guards and the way that the prison is run has been identified by many as “The Program.” The prisoners who come to Riker’s Island can either agree to The Program or disagree with it. If they agree they must give up everything to these gangs which includes their phone time and commissary. If they don’t agree to The Program, the gangs beat them at any given time, until they are moved to a new housing unit where it starts all over again. Kalief didn’t agree to The Program; instead, he fought back

Like other housing units, the guards were required to let the prisoners out of their cells at 4:30. Kalief recalled not being allowed out until 6:30 or 7:00 most days. In one incident, the correctional officers told the to go back into their cells ten minutes after they had been let out. Kalief refused. He began calling out the guards on this and the correctional officers dragged him to his cell in cuffs, proceeding to beat him. Kalief was now on the correctional officer’s bad side as well as the gangs