0:00

On a cold night in 2010, a

0:02

boy is stopped by the police while walking

0:05

home from a party in the Bronx. He's

0:07

only 16. He's been stopped by

0:09

the police before, but this time is

0:11

different. In this special four-part

0:13

series, the Generation Y podcast

0:16

unravels a story of Kalief Browder,

0:18

a young boy who was falsely accused of stealing

0:21

a backpack and held without bail at Rikers

0:23

Island for three years. During

0:25

that time, he endured regular abuse by

0:27

prison staff and inmates and was held

0:30

in solitary confinement for more than 700 consecutive

0:32

days. Three

0:34

years later, Kalief was released, never

0:36

once having stood trial. Kalief's

0:39

case ended up being a catalyst for change

0:41

in the use of solitary confinement against

0:43

minors in federal prisons, but we

0:45

still have a long way to go. We

0:47

say innocent until proven guilty, but

0:50

where do we draw the line between due process

0:52

and cruelty? I'm about to play a clip

0:55

from this four-part series on Generation

0:57

Y. While you're listening, follow Generation

0:59

Y wherever you get your podcasts. Hey,

1:01

Prime members, you can listen ad-free on Amazon

1:04

Music. Download the Amazon Music app

1:06

today.

1:13

Most people, if they were

1:15

to be jailed or incarcerated

1:17

for 30 days,

1:20

they would lose their house, they would lose their

1:22

job, they would lose everything. Just 30

1:26

days behind bars. There are

1:28

so many other punishments, there

1:30

are so many other impacts that incarceration

1:34

have that no one weighs out because

1:36

we just think, time behind bars,

1:38

we just think, did

1:40

the punishment fit the crime? And then, on

1:43

top of that, people want

1:45

jailhouse justice. They

1:47

want prisoners to suffer more

1:50

while they're behind bars, as if they're not

1:52

suffering already.

1:55

And I've spent time in the military,

1:58

I've been... isolated

2:01

from my family and friends, I can't

2:04

imagine what it would be like to be put

2:06

in solitary for even a few

2:08

days, much less months or years.

2:12

So we've already talked about the

2:15

harm that solitary confinement does.

2:17

And then when you add in the fact that

2:19

Khalif Browder was

2:22

just picked off the street, right?

2:26

Yeah. No proof of any

2:28

kind of crime, of

2:31

laws broken, just

2:33

picked up off the street and

2:36

put behind bars. Never

2:38

convicted of anything. Right. And

2:41

then he's punished anyway.

2:43

Yeah. Think this is the weight of the case, Justin,

2:47

that we are somehow

2:49

in this country okay with punishing

2:52

people who we haven't even

2:54

convicted. We're just going to

2:57

punish them. It

2:59

seems wrong to me. And I don't understand

3:01

how this isn't causing

3:06

more people to stand

3:08

up and say

3:11

something. I mean, we're all

3:13

ready to jump

3:15

and maybe try and get someone fired

3:18

from their job because they said something we didn't like.

3:20

Right? Yeah. I

3:22

guess it's not that much more of a stretch

3:25

to say we're okay with someone who

3:27

somehow maybe they're

3:29

not sure, probably not even, you

3:32

know, not enough information to even guess

3:35

on whether they broken a law or not. We're okay with them

3:38

being put in solitary confinement

3:40

and being beaten and starved. Because

3:43

people seem to think that it's pedophiles

3:46

and rapists that get that jailhouse

3:49

justice. People

3:51

just think it's murderers who deserve

3:54

the most extreme punishment

3:59

or most extreme. factors

4:02

that go along with incarceration, but

4:05

it's everybody. Being

4:08

incarcerated, there's no distinction

4:11

between somebody who's there for

4:13

unpaid parking tickets or

4:16

somebody that's there for minor

4:18

drug offenses or

4:21

somebody that is

4:23

a violent offender. It

4:27

doesn't discriminate. It doesn't

4:29

save the worst for the worst offenders.

4:33

And here we have Kaleef Browder,

4:35

who again, never

4:37

convicted

4:39

of his crime that he went

4:41

to Rikers for. It's not

4:43

like the worst of the worst are the only ones

4:45

being put in solitary confinement. The

4:47

guards can put people in solitary

4:50

for any number of reasons. You'd

4:52

be surprised. It doesn't take much. But

4:55

again, we have different ideas about how

4:57

to manage people and our

4:59

responsibility when it comes to housing

5:02

those who have been convicted or

5:05

are just being held in the United

5:07

States in prisons or in jails or in juvenile

5:09

detention centers.

5:11

I just feel like we have

5:13

an obligation to do better because

5:16

if you're going to

5:18

be the one that makes that call and say, well,

5:21

you're gonna have to spend 10, 20 years, whatever,

5:24

buying bars,

5:25

well, now you have to take responsibility for

5:27

that person.

5:28

We can't keep saying, well, they're a horrible

5:31

person, so who cares what happens to them?

5:33

Because the minute we start going down that road, we

5:36

start to lose our humanity.

5:38

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Generation

5:40

Y ad-free on Amazon Music. Download

5:42

the Amazon Music

5:43

app today.