29 September 2009 RIKERS HIGH by Paul Volponi, Viking, February 2010, 256p., ISBN: 978-0-670-01107-0
"'My name is Gale Thompson,' she said, inside a small conference room. 'I've been assigned to represent you in this matter.'
"Before she even asked me what happened, she started to explain how I was guilty and what kind of deal she could get me.
"They had me for 'steering' -- telling an undercover cop where to buy weed in my neighborhood. I told her I did it, but that it was really a setup. How the dude who walked up to me was diesel, and I was afraid not to tell him anything or he might start to beef with me. I told her that she had to tell my side of it, too, before I got anywhere near calling myself guilty.
"We argued back and forth for a while. Then she just threw her hands up and sent a note to the judge saying we weren't ready. He didn't like that and I had to wait almost ten weeks to come back...
"I didn't see Miss Thompson again until the next time my case came up."
And when seventeen-year-old Martin Stokes is next transported to court, the judge is tied up with another case, so instead of finding a resolution and going home to his mom, grandmother, and little sisters, Martin is forced to return once again to Rikers Island. It is on that return trip, while chained to another inmate, that he literally gets stuck in the middle of a fight, is sliced across the face with a razor blade and then, upon release from the clinic, is assigned to a new housing unit.
Told minute by heart-pounding minute over the course of eighteen days and nights, RIKERS HIGH is the in-your-face story of Martin's five-and-a-half month ordeal on Rikers. It is a frightening story built upon Paul Volponi's own extensive experience working as a teacher on Rikers Island. Which is truly unfortunate. I would be a million times happier if I were able to imagine this story as being all fantasy and hyped-up TV drama, than to have to deal with the reality that this is what is really going on in our criminal justice system at this very moment in what most people would presumably characterize as the height of human civilization and the greatest country that ever was.
Read RIKERS HIGH and tell me how any kid in Martin's position is supposed to ever believe in or respect any aspect of this system after what he goes through. To characterize this system as being counterproductive is the sarcastic and sanitized version of what I'd call it if my emails didn't have to pass muster with so many school district filters.
What I would love to see are two things:
I'd love to see teens reading this book and keeping score on each of the authority figures we meet. Which ones treat Martin and the other juvenile detainees like they would want their own child treated under identical circumstances? Which ones don't? Which could one sleep well being?
And I'd love to see someone in the heavyweight division of the New York City media read this book and begin asking some serious questions and follow-up questions about its accuracy, and then reporting some answers.
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