Last year, visited a client with his social worker at “The Boat.” Otherwise known as the Vernon C. Bain Center. A jail thats part of Rikers just floating in the East River. It houses 600 individuals, most presumed innocent, nearly all black or Latinx. nytimes.com/2019/10/10/nyr…
Far more foreboding in person. And I’ve heard from folks that you can’t tell you’re on a boat when you’re inside. Not true. You can feel the swaying of this massive prison ship. 
More details: Built in 1992 in NOLA for $161 million to curb overcrowding at Rikers. Transformed from a defunct Staten Island ferry boat into this massive prison boat. 47,326-tons. 5 stories. As large as 2 football fields.
To get in you walk across this metal mesh enclosed tunnel bridge over water. So strange looking down and seeing water. Inside they have a wooden model of the ship in a glass case. They also had pretty elaborate Halloween decorations in intake & stringed autumn leaves on the wall.
“Black people were brought to this country in cages on a boat. Today, hundreds of Black people are caged in the Vernon C. Bain Center, an actual boat floating in the East River in the Bronx. People ask how far we’ve come since slavery. We haven’t moved at all.” -@alicefontier
