#Moral Failings

[xtruss]

NYC Jails Flagrantly Deny Young People’s Legal Right To Education

New Court Filings Say That the City is Violating an Eight-Year-Old Court Order Mandating Access to Education for People Under 22.

— Akela Lacy | April 4, 2024

A View of the New York City Jails on Rikers Island, seen from a departing flight from LaGuardia Airport on Dec. 10, 2022, in Queens, N.Y. Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Last June, New York City Mayor Eric Adams Spoke to Graduates at Rikers Island who received their high-school-equivalence diplomas while serving in jail.

“When you get your diplomas today,” Adams told the graduates, “I want you to stand up, lean back, be firm and strong and say, ‘I got this. When does the hard part start? I’m finished with the hard part. Now I’m moving forward to my destiny on what I want to accomplish.’”

The group represented the successful fruits of a law that guarantees access to education to people incarcerated in city jails. The success stories, however, are only part of the picture.

Other young people incarcerated in New York jails said in court filings that they’ve been repeatedly denied their legal right to education and that the city has failed to comply with a 2016 court order requiring education access for people between 18 and 21 held in in Department of Correction custody. In filings Wednesday, the plaintiffs in a decadeslong class-action suit against the city called for the appointment of a new court monitor to oversee implementation of the order.

“Not Only Is This A Legal Failing, But It’s A Moral Failing.”

“Not only is this a legal failing, but it’s a moral failing,” said Lauren Stephens-Davidowitz, a staff attorney with the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society, a public defense organization, which made the Wednesday filings. “You have these young people who are begging to get their high school education while they’re incarcerated, and are just trying so hard, and are being denied it.”

The original 1996 suit claimed that the city Department of Correction and the Department of Education failed to provide education to young people entitled to public schooling. Plaintiffs are now alleging that the city has failed to comply with a 2016 federal court order requiring that incarcerated young people be given access to a minimum of three hours of educational services each day. The order also required provision of special education services to people who needed them.

Class members include 29 people in New York City custody between the ages of 18 and 21 who don’t currently have a high school diploma. Declarations from class members provided to The Intercept document alleged violations of the 2016 court order, including claims that they’ve been told they can only receive education if they’re housed in certain programmatic facilities. (The Department of Education referred questions to the Department of Correction. The mayor’s office did not provide a comment.)

By keeping people from accessing legally required educational services, the Department of Correction is working against its professed goal of rehabilitation, said Stefen Short, a supervising attorney with the Prisoner’s Rights Project.

“It’s proven that when an individual attains their high school diploma or the equivalent in custody, their prospects for success improve on the outside,” Short said. “DOC is essentially letting folks sit idle rather than provide them with access to educational services to which they have a right. That renders everyone in the jail setting less safe. It’s a strange state of affairs. It doesn’t serve anyone’s interests.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Correction referred questions about the legal filing to the city’s Law Department, which represents the mayor and city agencies, and has not responded.

“The department has just received additional funding for programming for people in custody,” said the Correction spokesperson, Annais Morales, said, adding that the funds would allow for programs including general education diploma preparation and “tutoring for all people in custody.”

Last Chance For A Diploma

The court appointed a monitor in 2016 to oversee the city’s implementation of the order. In his third report in 2018, as his two-year term was winding down, the monitor found that the order was working for younger detainees, who were being phased out of the adult criminal system under a 2018 city law and were no longer part of the class, but not for people over the age of 18.

“While the education program at Rikers has shown marked improvements during the past two years, access to education for inmates age 18 to 21 is a persistent problem,” the report said.

Only people incarcerated in special Department of Correction program housing have access to education services. Detainees don’t have a choice in where they’re housed, and people in non-program housing have said they’ve requested access to education and been denied.

At a November meeting of the city’s Board of Correction, a nine-member oversight body, Correction Department Deputy Commissioner Francis Torres said the department provided educational services at only two facilities: the Robert N. Davoren Complex and the Rose M. Singer Center. “For this year, we have targeted our educational efforts, meaning granting access to educational services at RNDC and Rose M. Singer,” Torres said.

One incarcerated person, who needs special education services and submitted a declaration as part of the new filing Wednesday, said he had lost nearly a year of progress toward his diploma during the Covid-19 pandemic and was still being denied access to education.

“I need my special education services in order to make educational progress,” the incarcerated man said. “I am not getting the three hours of education per day that I am entitled to.”

The man, who said he was interested in vocational training in carpentry, computers, or cybersecurity, added, “I want to seize every opportunity I can to prepare for a better future.”

An incarcerated 19-year-old who received special education services prior to being in jail custody said Department of Correction staff told him he had to wait to receive education services until he was transferred to a different complex. When he got there, he said staff told him he couldn’t enroll in education services because he wasn’t in a school dorm.

“I was worried that I would not be safe in another housing area,” he said. “I did not think it was fair that I had to choose between school and safety.”

When an incarcerated person turns 22, they age out of the right to get education while in jail. “This is the last chance they have to get a high school education,” said Stephens-Davidowitz, the Legal Aid attorney. “This is a critical juncture in their lives. They have a right to do it, and they’re trying.”

[cookie-nom-nom]

A dream

It’s about moral entropy. It’s about being desperate to save the world, to do the right thing, and it’s about the slow dawning horror of realizing you’re being manipulated. Of everything you do only destroying the people you love. It’s about the inability to accept your own fall, clinging onto that pedestal of moral virtue even as it rots from the inside and inevitably crumbles. It’s about thwarting your younger, better self at every turn, dragging them back kicking and screaming as fate rips them into place and snapping at them to shut up because this is what’s good for you, good for everyone. And it’s about the realization that you were lying to the both of you. 

There’s a strange feeling in you, when you look up the man who twisted your ideals and used you to set up the apocalypse. When you know finally you have no delusions left about exactly what he is, exactly what you are. You hate him, you love him, you hate yourself more. 

And he speaks softly, kindly, and cruelly honestly. And he tells you that you’re a rabbit struggling, ensnared. That you could still rip away free, gouges deep in your flesh, but you don’t have to take this last step. But the little rabbit sees the prize on the other end, and so they struggle in further and deeper and allow themselves to die.

And he offers you three items, and you know at once this is your final mission. And he is honest when he says it will destroy you. 

(And it’s not about the objects, was never about the objects, not the rotten apple in his hands nor the rusted keys nor the bent spoon, it was all about what he would do with them, or rather what you would do to yourself with them) 

Because then he offers one last item. And he says this will be the start of your recovery. That you will heal from even this, even if no one else will. He says that you will survive no matter if survival sounds worse than the Hell you deserve. That one day, despite it all, the trauma will begin to knit itself closed.

And you ask for a moment to decide. And he grants it, kindly. And you just fall to your knees weeping, knowing this is all your fault. Knowing how deeply you betrayed everyone, betrayed yourself. Because this? This destruction? This unbecoming of all things? You guided it every step of the process beneath his hand. This is nothing like the world your younger, better self fought for, so far from good and righteous that you don’t even know who you are anymore. 

And I hear this line, so crisp and solid and tangible. A solid epiphany in the midst of the dream self’s despair: No wonder my mother flinches from me every time I reach for her.

But you take one last shuddering you, and wipe your tears and get up. And you accept the items because it’s so, so far past too late. And so you destroy the world.

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[frodo-a-gogo]

Let us be brutally honest with ourselves and with eachother for a moment. If he weren't obese you motherfuckers would be capable of percieving evrart claires sexy sexy moral ambiguity and complex charms

[fascinationstreetmp3]

i need daniel to be overcompensating for his insecurities so bad. 100 times more cocky and rude and aggressive and insensitive than he was as a human, falling back into old dangerous habits and vices, not just because now he has new energy and power and wealth to flaunt but because it's ALL he has, and he needs to cling onto it. play it up and revel in it so no one sees that underneath, he feels like a botched fledgling in the body of a sick, faded old man who maybe has no real idea why he was even made. that armand might think he failed in making him. that his maker didn't even really want him.

[bloodybellycomb]

"Red white and royal blue is too cringy" "heartstopper is too unrealistic" yeah maybe but so is every single other rom com under the sun. Why does queer media always need to be realistic and profound while straight stories get more freedom to be silly and fantastical?

[thepeacefulgarden]

[nocek]

it's meant as a first panel in comic but you know what, with amount of work (to figure out how to do "special effects" on Hobie and Margo as efficiently as possible) I poured into it it deserves separate post ;P

oh and if somebody is interested sketch version is here actually I'm quite proud it only took 4 days to finish, felt much longer >.<

[orangepajamas]

Kim got like 2 points in Physical Touch

[heph]

04 x 16 | Just stay with me 🧣

[cheerioskid]

the siblings

[the-meme-monarch]

"if shermie is the baby in A Tale Of Two Stans then according to The Rest of the timeline he would've been a teen parent, and then dipper and mabel's parents would've been also, which would be kinda fucked up" I mean yeah alright. my mom had my brother when she was 17 and his dad was 16. I'm not saying it's a Great or even a particularly good thing but it does happen. the pines family is already so fucked up let's just add teen pregnancies to the mix. dipper and mabel's parents are getting divorced like canonically. their divorce is what kicks off the show

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

I figured this would be appropriate....

[mollysunder]

I know Heimerdinger's Christian Linke's favorite character, and I sort of tolerated it in s1, but now it feels like things are a little too indulgent. Heimerdinger gets to team up with Ekko to launder his reputation through Ekko and the Firelights. Heimerdinger gets the first narrative game and second character teaser in the promotional cycl. Heimerdinger gets to SING A SONG that's included on the s2 Arcane soundtrack (Spin the Wheel).

Maybe I'd be less annoyed if the show at least did more to acknowledge Heimerdinger's failings as a leader, but his character description can't even do that. This is how the official Arcane website describes Heimerdinger:

"Heimerdinger warned the Piltover Council about the dangers of using magic without tangible solutions for safeguarding its use. Learning from his mistakes with Jayce, Heimerdinger inspires Ekko to keep looking for a solution and works with him to solve the problem, instead of just offering advice."

That's not Heimerdinger's main problem! The problem is the fact he's the person most singularly responsible for the state of Zaun and Piltover. It feels like the show and the cast are just dancing around the fact that Heimerdinger technically has the highest body count in the show (Day of Ash, pollution, extreme poverty, etc). The one time someone puts him to task (Jayce), the show makes it seem like Jayce is wrong or overstepped, and yeah he did do it for Viktor's sake, but Jayce was right! Heimerdinger's bad at his job, he shouldn't be in a leadership position if he's a bad leader.

[growling]

the way this website treats disabled people is actually horrendous

[darkcademiasss]

When its 3am but the grumpy morally grey character had a 'oh, oh' moment as they stare at the sunshine character all while trying not to have a panic attack.