I Had a Tough Job at My Brooklyn Jail: Keeping Men From Taking Their Own Lives

Having your freedom snatched away is immensely traumatic. One minute you might be residing a lifetime of calm. The following minute you might be surrounded by partitions that appear to be closing in by the second.

I do know this firsthand: In November 2016, I discovered myself detained on New York’s infamous Rikers Island for a homicide that I dedicated eight years earlier, once I was 16 years previous.

Detectives from Queens, New York, had made the trek to Pennsylvania, the place I had moved, to interrogate me on the state police barracks. About an hour later, I used to be positioned beneath arrest. Actually, I wasn’t stunned. I used to be cognizant that my previous actions would someday meet up with me.

I stayed in Rikers’ C-74 unit for 2 months earlier than relocating to Brooklyn Detention Advanced. Whereas it wasn’t as generally known as Rikers, it felt no much less harmful.

Till the latter a part of 2017, the jail lacked safety cameras. And the structure of Brooklyn Home, which closed down in 2020, appeared to make officer response occasions longer. The C-74 unit the place I used to be housed was three tales, and folks used the steps to journey between flooring. Brooklyn Home was a 12-story constructing that required most motion via elevators. We solely used the steps if all the elevators have been inoperable.

To make issues extra harmful, there have been no automated doorways into the housing models. Officers needed to manually unlock the doorways, and I consider this led them to disregard altercations and acts of aggression.

Brooklyn Home had jobs starting from home element, which was a flowery title for sweeping and mopping the housing unit, to particular sanitation, which entailed cleansing vents and home windows. I bought some of the sought-after positions: suicide prevention aide, or SPA.

SPAs walked via their housing models each half-hour or so to make sure nobody was harming themselves or having suicidal ideations.

Getting the job was surprisingly straightforward. After a brief coaching on the duties, we solely needed to take a 25-question take a look at. A lot of the questions have been a number of selection and a passing grade was 72.

Additionally, the test-taking wasn’t monitored. A employees member merely handed us the pages via the gate on the unit’s entrance and informed us to finish it within the day room. After this certification, we obtained no additional coaching.

Although I used to be assigned the morning shift, which ran from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., corrections officers normally let me keep out 24 hours a day. I believe that the extra SPAs have been out, the much less officers needed to do their very own rounds.

Most days on the job have been quiet, particularly throughout my shift. Whereas the remainder of the detainees have been locked in, I’d stroll the unit, scribble my initials in a logbook and watch for a captain’s signature. If there have been any suicide makes an attempt or hazard indicators, I must doc them within the e-book.

Initially, it was robust to take the job significantly due to the shortage of coaching and the hostility most people round me had towards psychological well being.

Folks normally took the job due to the false sense of freedom that got here with not having to lock in with all people else. Additionally, the $25 every week I made was a pleasant hike from a job like pantry element, which earned lower than $16 every week. Nevertheless, I quickly realized that being detained for against the law isn’t straightforward on anyone, and that psychological well being woes can floor in many various methods.

During my 9 months as an SPA, I often discovered myself speaking to a person my age that I’ll name S.

S had a high-profile case: He was accused of beating his girlfriend’s baby to dying. He maintained his innocence and claimed that his girlfriend positioned the blame on him as revenge for his infidelities.

However since his crime concerned a toddler, different detainees attacked S and officers handled him poorly. For instance, an officer as soon as refused to let him out of his cell to get his lunch tray. The stress usually bought to S, and he would commonly break down in tears.

I’d usually inform him, “When you say you’re harmless, you must maintain it collectively. You’ve individuals who care about you who’re sticking in your nook.”

For his personal sake, he would discover some stability. And the psych meds he was ultimately prescribed gave him some respite.

Another individual I’d usually speak to was a person I am going to name Ok. He and I developed a extremely sturdy and stable friendship, as we shared related lives.

Previous to being arrested, we each labored lengthy hours — me, for a cleansing firm inside a grocery store distribution middle; and him, within the meals court docket on a university campus. We each had an affinity for sports-themed video video games similar to NBA 2K and FIFA. We have been each concerned in gang life, however have been lucky sufficient to get away from the neighborhoods the place these deviant behaviors started.

Nonetheless, Ok was in jail for fatally stabbing the mom of his baby greater than 40 occasions in a rage. I used to be there for utilizing a knife to kill a feminine pal once we have been youngsters. She and I bought right into a ridiculous argument, and I snapped. I allowed violent and uncontrollable anger to information my actions.

Though I masked my self-inflicted trauma with phrases of positivity and optimism, Ok was extra open about his struggles. Ok was initially going through life with out parole, however he wished the chance to plead to a decreased cost, like manslaughter. He would usually inform me that if issues didn’t work out within the courts, he would “cling up,” or commit suicide.

The way in which he made these threats so nonchalantly frightened me. However I used to be apprehensive about reporting him due to our tight-knit friendship. So I made certain to all the time give him my consideration once I felt he wanted it.

Fortunately, Ok discovered solace in his 4 children and household, and he’s nonetheless round at the moment. He was sentenced to twenty years for his crime, however he understood that leaving three of his children with no father — and leaving the kid of his sufferer with out each dad and mom — would perpetuate the generational trauma he had confronted in his personal life.

As somebody who misplaced a grandmother to suicide, I understood how devastating the results of that may be on a household and the broader group.

Though I noticed different unlucky occasions like fights and stabbings; nobody tried suicide on my watch. However locations like Brooklyn Home breed psychological instability and are unequipped to take care of the variety of people who need assistance.

In an try and curb the suicide fee amongst prisoners, some New York state services similar to Attica have adopted positions much like SPA.

For these jobs, incarcerated people are meticulously screened and skilled by the Workplace of Psychological Well being. Whereas the preparation was extra in depth than what we bought at Brooklyn Home, it’s nonetheless tough to position somebody who’s already residing in a traumatic atmosphere in such an necessary position.

It could be simpler for these considering suicide to place their belief in a fellow incarcerated individual, however we are able to’t exchange the psychological well being employees who’re virtually all the time overwhelmed by the wants of a whole lot of people housed in these prisons.

Regardless of the shortage of coaching at Brooklyn Home, I did profit from my job as SPA. It allowed me to really feel extra empathy for these coping with psychological well being struggles. I can always remember the faces that appeared so hopeless someday and lively the following. By way of their braveness and perseverance, I discovered items of myself that I didn’t know existed. For that, I’m endlessly grateful.

Rashon Venable is a broadcast poet and a coordinator for Prisoners for AIDS Counseling and Training at Sullivan Correctional Facility in New York. He’s additionally a frontrunner of Sullivan’s Muslim group. When he’s not writing, you’ll find him profitable a recreation of Scrabble, diving right into a nonfiction e-book or finding out for his liberal arts diploma. Though he’s presently housed within the Catskills area of New York, he calls the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania house.

A spokesperson from the New York Metropolis Division of Correction stated the company was unable to substantiate the main points of Rashon Venable’s employment as a suicide prevention aide.