Soon after she was sent to Rikers in 2010, Kelly Harnett became a regular at the jail’s law library. She was looking for a loophole, a technical error, something that might set her free. Harnett was 28 and facing murder charges for the killing of a stranger in a park in Queens. She was innocent, she … read more
The Artists Taking on Mass Incarceration
More and more art is challenging long-held assumptions about the criminal justice system WHEN THE INTERDISCIPLINARY artist Maria Gaspar was 12 years old, her teachers took her to jail. It was the early 1990s, in the era of Scared Straight programs aimed at curbing juvenile delinquency, and Gaspar and her classmates were deemed “at risk,” by virtue … read more
He Was Innocent. He Served Eight Years Anyway
It didn’t matter that he was innocent. That the waitress whose restaurant he allegedly robbed identified him from a photo lineup, then recanted her testimony on the witness stand. That the prosecution offered to drop the weapons possession charge against the restaurant’s cook if he fingered him as the robber. That the judge would not … read more
How Leander Perez’s Vicious Racism Backfired and Saved Jury Trials
All Gary Duncan wanted to do was prevent a fight between some Black and white kids. But when the 19-year old African-American lightly touched the arm of a 14-year-old white boy named Herman Landry in what he felt was a paternal, conciliatory gesture, Landry’s response was, “My people can put you in jail for that.” … read more
