Rikers Island jail gets kid-friendly visitor's room for incarcerated women ahead of Mother's Day

(11 May 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York - 7 May 2024
1. Exterior of Rikers Island jail complex
2. Razor wire at jail complex
3. Three year old Queen Jones plays with new installation at Rikers Island visitation hub. Her grandmother is imprisoned awaiting trial on felony drug charges.
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction:
“So this is a new hub, a new visiting hub that allows parents to interact directly with their kids.”
5. Maginley-Liddie cuts ribbon opening new visitation preschool play and learn room
6. Fencing and inmate complex
7. Nadine Leach, 43, right, imprisoned on an A1 felony drug charge, is visited by her daughter Lashawna Jones, 27, and grandchildren Princess, 1 year old, and Queen, 3 years old.
8. Corrections officers and playroom
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction:
“Mother's Day is on Sunday, and it also intertwines with how we're rolling this out. It's a special time for them to have with their parents.”
10. Razor wire at Rikers Island
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction:
“We want mothers to have interactions with their kids. You know, being incarcerated can be very difficult. It can be difficult on the children. It can be difficult on the moms. And it's important for them to have those connections even while they're in our care, so that when they when they are released, they know that, you know, they have that bond and that bond has been sustained during incarceration. And it's also it it sort of reduces recidivism as well. So they don't end up coming back into our care.”
12. Maginley-Liddie with child
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Nadine Leach, Rikers Island Inmate:
“Oh, Mother's Day means everything to me. These are my grandkids. This is my daughter. This is Princess the baby. Excuse me. And this is Queen, the big girl."
14. Street on Rikers Island
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Nadine Leach, Rikers Island Inmate:
“Drugs, I have an A1 felony for drugs.”
16. Sign on wall reads “Inmates Are Permitted to Hold Their Children During the Visit”
17. Leach and family at lunch table
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Lashawna Jones, Daughter of Rikers Island Inmate:
“It's beautiful. It's nice from last time we came here it wasn't done. But it looks nice for the kids. So when they come and visit they family, they can go in and play, color, it's great.”
19. Razor wire and jail structure
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Lashawna Jones, Daughter of Rikers Island Inmate:
“It makes me sad that she's not actually home with us for Mother's Day because I feel like a little sad coming here to visit her here because I'm used to having her physically home with us. So her being here it makes me sad. Like, right now, I’m being a big girl I’m holding my tears back.”
21. Rikers Island exterior
22. SOUNDBITE (English) Leslie Bushara, Children’s Museum of Manhattan:
“These exhibits are our preschool exhibits that we have at the museum that teach preschool skills: communication, sharing, literacy, executive function skills, all of the things that children need to enter preschool ready to thrive and learn. And so this environment helps the incarcerated mother and the child develop those skills together.”
23. Jones and toddler daughter Princess
24. Three year old Queen Jones playing
STORYLINE:
One interactive wall display shows a map of the city’s five boroughs. Buttons below trigger city sounds, like the screech of a subway.
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