“Because of the Nature of What Jail Is”.

Farah Famouri MPH Student

Age: 23

Hometown: Morgantown, West Virginia (“I actually have a tattoo of my state. It has the state motto, which is Montani semper liberi, ‘Mountaineers are always free.’”)

Breakfast: Toast, hummus, hardboiled egg (“My main breakfast consumption is coffee, so I just need something substantial that’ll make it so that my stomach doesn’t hurt from the amount of coffee that I drink.”)

You spent this past summer at Rikers Island for a practicum working in a pilot grievance program as a grievance counselor. What was your first day like?

I was so scared. The first month of my practicum was training. We were being trained in the same place correction officers are trained, and they’re telling you these worst-case scenarios that have happened to civilians or non-uniform staff, such as myself. So I had been there for a month hearing these worst-case scenarios. Also I was afraid of jails and prisons in general. But one thing I pride myself on is being able to look at my fears, go have the experience, and find out there was nothing to be afraid of. That’s ultimately what happened.

What was your first day working with the inmates like?

I was really nervous, and then my first experience with an inmate was playing Uno. We were shadowing the people doing social services, to get acclimated to working with inmates in the housing areas, and that time was very valuable, because there was no agenda. It was just time, talking and getting to know the population. I knew they were going to ask me so many questions, because I’m the first new face they’ve seen in months, potentially years. I was bombarded with a lot of personal questions that I would be like, ‘I’m not going to answer that,’ but also a lot of questions about big issues.

Like what?

I talked with inmates about the importance of vaccines. I talked with inmates about the social determinants of health. I utilized so much public health knowledge from the first core classes I had taken. This was the first time someone has ever been told, ‘Where you live or what socioeconomic status you’re born into can affect everything else in your life.’

Once you did start working with them on grievances, what did that involve?

Basically a grievance in the jail system is about assuring that inmates receive their legal minimum standards. But, turns out, that’s a really difficult thing to do, because of the nature of what jail is. As part of the Commissioner’s 14 Point Anti‐Violence agenda they wanted to reduce movement in the hallways, because that’s how a lot of the violence happens. So they wanted to do this pilot where, instead of bringing the inmates down to the grievance office, bring the grievance counselors to the inmates. I was assigned four housing areas, each housing area had 40 to 50 inmates, and I would go into the housing unit every day and ask them, ‘Do you have any grievances?’

“Rikers is a jail; 90 percent of the population is pre-trial detainees. It’s entirely possible 9 out of every 10 people didn’t even do what they were accused of doing.”

What kinds of grievances did you get?

Most of the issues were lack of access, which is understandable. I think there was actually a New York Post article saying Rikers inmates missed 40,000 medical appointments in four months.

The thing is, when you need an officer to escort inmates somewhere, then you need to have the officer. You can’t just take an officer off the floor, because they have to be monitoring that housing unit. When there’s an officer shortage, like there currently is, it can be really difficult to abide by policies.

That’s something I didn’t necessarily understand going in. I assumed, ‘Well why wouldn’t they? This is their job! This is what the law says!’ but then you have an incident—which is when, if there was a slashing of an officer, or any type of inmate fight, there’s an alarm called where you have to go into the nearest room and you have to stay there until they call the alarm off. There was one day where I couldn’t leave one of the rooms for essentially the entire day, because there was incident after incident after incident.

What was the toughest thing during this practicum?

If an inmate does something wrong, they can get written up and put in solitary confinement, ‘punitive segregation,’ for 45 days. So let’s say an inmate wants to appeal a disciplinary ticket. The appeals process takes almost as long as the sentence itself. And it’s especially frustrating because Rikers is a jail; 90 percent of the population is pre-trial detainees. It’s entirely possible 9 out of every 10 people didn’t even do what they were accused of doing.

It’s not that the policies were setting up inmates to fail, it’s just very obvious whoever was writing these policies wasn’t thinking of an innocent person who just couldn’t pay bail and is awaiting trial, and could be completely, 100 percent innocent.

On the opposite end, what was the most rewarding thing about this practicum? What made you think, “This is why I’m here”?

I actually had a lot of those moments every day. On my last day, a bunch of inmates in one of my housing areas were like, ‘Ms. Farah, you solved too many grievances and now they’re firing you!’ And I was like, ‘That’s not how it works, but I really appreciate the vote of confidence.’

We just saw the largest prison strike in the country’s history. What was going through your head as you’re watching that go on?

I’ll put it this way: while I was in jail I didn’t watch—and still haven’t watched—the new season of Orange Is the New Black. That was a self-care method. When you’re listening to someone unload all of their problems, all their concerns, these horrible things that have happened to them or sometimes horrible things they’ve done, it takes a lot out of you. You never want something like vicarious trauma. So when the new season of Orange Is the New Black came out, I was like, ‘I can’t watch this yet, I know it’s going to be too much.’

I do think this is a really important time for incarcerated individuals, and I’m hoping all of these culture changes will affect the way people are viewing this and maybe realize it is more of a gray area than people normally think.

Interview by Michelle Samuels.