From Inquest
By Troy Hendrix
In my forty years of life, I have spent sixteen of them in solitary confinement.
In 2003, when I was nineteen years old, I was placed in captivity at Rikers Island, where the law of the land was violence and chaos. It was there, as a teenager, that I had my first experience with solitary confinement. During the three years I was imprisoned in Rikers awaiting trial, I did a few short stints in solitary confinement. The conditions were horrendous and inhumane. Dubbed many names such as “the box,” “the hole,” and “the coop” (as in chicken coop), the memories of this time will always haunt my thoughts.
In January 2006 I reached a breaking point. I was irate with the criminal legal system for holding me captive despite my innocence. I was enraged with my court appointed attorneys, who put no real effort into fighting to prove my innocence. I was furious with the oppressive guards, who brutalized us physically and mentally on a daily basis. During my trial, I took this bottled-up anger and revolted in the courtroom. I caused a melee, and when it was over I was placed in the “box,” where I was kept for a few weeks until my trial was completed. Then, like cattle, I was shipped into the custody of New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), where the next phase of my hellish nightmare would begin.
I remember my first day feeling my spine shiver once the metal cell door closed behind me with a resounding thud. The next sounds I heard were the shouting, screaming, and banging of my peers, and the combination of these noises assaulted my eardrums. Continue reading >>>
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