Say his name – Kalief Browder.
Kalief Browder was a young Black man from the Bronx. Born on May 25, 1993, Kalief was charged with theft (a backpack and its contents including a camera, cash, credit card, and an iPod Touch) and was jailed on Rikers Island for three years (without being convicted of a crime) in 2010 while he awaited his trial. He spent almost two of those years in solitary confinement and was eventually released from Rikers because the prosecutor’s case lacked evidence against Browder and the main witness in the case left the United States. Fast forward to 2015, Browder took his own life in his parent’s home and his suicide is believed to be caused by the physical and mental abuse he endured while at Rikers.
Browder attempted to take his own life several times while at Rikers, and six months after his release. He spent time at the psychiatric wards at St. Barnabas Hospital and Harlem Hospital. While at Rikers, Browder was abused by inmates and officers, and upon his release, he suffered from bouts of paranoia believing that someone was after him. Since his death, New York City has ended the use of solitary confinement for 16-and 17-year-olds and Mayor de Blasio’s administration has developed a plan to move Rikers inmates under 18 to a dedicated jail for youths in the Bronx.
But why does someone have to die in order for us to make a change? Kalief Browder probably isn’t the first person to take his own life after suffering from the hands of an unjust justice system. He was jailed at 16 years old and placed in an 80-square-foot cell by himself for 23-hours a day for almost two years. Browder was physically unable to grow mentally and emotionally due to a biased and outdated system that would rather imprison and prosecute instead of upholding and protecting. Too often black and brown people are disregarded and undervalued because of the color of their skin. This treatment can be traced back to the Three-Fifths Compromise of the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. Slaves weren’t even considered a whole person and were to be counted as three-fifths of a white person. What type of nonsense is that? Blacks were literally classified by the color of their skin, then declassified and reduced to a fraction of a human being in comparison. In my opinion, the trickle-down effect of the Compromise has forced Blacks to be viewed as lesser individuals and seen as undeserving of equal treatment.
As of last month, the city of New York has agreed to pay the family of Kalief Browder $3.3 million in a civil lawsuit. Money is being paid, and rules are being changed, but a black boy’s life was lost for this to happen. Browder was only 22 years old at the time of his death.
Check out the six-part miniseries on Netflix on how a system has truly failed those that it was never built to protect.
