Author Event: LOCKDOWN ON RIKERS
Date and Time
Oct 21, 2015 6:30 pm
Location
Takoma
235 Carroll St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20012
Oct 21, 2015 6:30 pm
Takoma
Join us as Mary Buser discusses and signs her memoir, Lockdown on Rikers: Shocking Stories of Abuse and Injustice at New York City s Notorious Jail.
By the late 2000's, Rikers Island, New York City's notorious jail complex in the East River, was making news, and for all the wrong reasons. Stories were leaking out of a hellish place where the mentally ill languished in solitary confmement, and where callous indifference to human life was the everyday. What was going on behind these walls?
A timely story, Lockdown on Rikers offers a searing glimpse into the troubled jail complex, identifying the deeper, more insidious reasons for the brutality that has exploded onto the front pages. She concludes with an overview of progress being made, of where things stand legislatively, and of action that citizens can take to urge reform, especially of solitary confinement in their own community.
About the author:
Mary E. Buser was a clinical social worker in the Rikers Island Mental Health Department from 1995 to 2000. She served as Assistant Chief of Mental Health in the island's Mental Health Center, as well as the 500-cell punitive segregation unit, also known as the "Bing." Since leaving Rikers, she has been an outspoken advocate for the incarcerated, especially the mentally ill and those held in solitary confmement. She wrote an Op-ed piece for The Washington Post (4/6/14), entitled "Solitary's Mockery of Human Rights." Prior to Rikers Island, she co-founded the Samaritans of New York suicide prevention hotline, and served as its first Executive Director. Her book, Lockdown on Rikers (9129115, St. Martin's Press) is the story of her jailhouse journey from idealistic intern to disillusioned chief.
Sponsored by Interfaith Action for Human Rights
The event is co-sponsored by NAMI-Maryland, NASW-MD Chapter, Pax Christi, Peace Action Montgomery, Maryland CURE, Super Solution Program, AFSClFriend of a Friend, Out For Justice, and Baltimore Quaker Peace and Justice
Free and open to all!
