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At Rikers, Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Rebecca McCray,
Former Managing Editor,
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July 13, 2011

Every cartographer has to leave something out. Street names, landmarks, tiny inlets 鈥 a two-dimensional rendering of our world can鈥檛 possibly include everything. This kind of selective exclusion reminds me of a specific khaki-colored mass of unmarked land on a map that I often find myself puzzling over during my commute. It hangs on the wall of every train car in New York City鈥檚 subway system, and I suspect a few of the other millions of people navigating this city glance at it occasionally, too.

On that map, a smallish blob of unlabeled land rests just northwest of LaGuardia Airport in the waters between Queens and the Bronx. This island is not uncharted territory 鈥 this is New York City, after all; we know what we鈥檝e got and we鈥檝e packed every inch of it to the brim. This is especially true of Rikers Island, that unmarked land, which is home to 10 jails that currently house people. Most of those people are awaiting trial behind bars because they cannot afford their bail; others will be sent further away to prisons upstate. , we鈥檝e kept the people we鈥檇 rather not think about on this forgettable piece of land, which previously served the city as before becoming a jail. Poetic, isn鈥檛 it?

Rikers Island isn鈥檛 alone in its invisibility. Most of our country鈥檚 thousands of prisons and jails are tucked away on isolated, undesirable plots of land where the 2.3 million people kept in them are more easily forgotten. For those of us who don鈥檛 have family or friends in jail or prison, it鈥檚 easier this way 鈥 we can think of them less if they鈥檙e kept in places to which we鈥檇 rather not travel (or in the case of the map on the train, places that can easily be forgotten because they go unmarked). For prison developers, the cheap cost of land and lack of conflict to contend with when building in economically depressed, rural areas has a unique appeal.

As someone who grew up in they couldn鈥檛 all make the map, I understand the need to pick and choose. But a country that incarcerates has a responsibility to make those millions of people visible. Perhaps something as minute as a map on a train isn鈥檛 a bad place to start.

We can鈥檛 afford to go about our lives only acknowledging the pretty places on our maps, and the people who live in the places deemed worthy of naming. This invisibility is inhumane. It is negligent. And it is expensive. Between our state and federal systems, taxpayers spend on prisons and corrections. Wouldn鈥檛 you like to know where that money is going?

The next time you鈥檙e on the subway, take a look at the map on the wall of the train car. Take a minute to consider that bit of land next to LaGuardia. Consider the places you aren鈥檛 trying to get to, where the trains won鈥檛 take you. The map might have you believe it鈥檚 nameless, but it鈥檚 not 鈥 and neither are the thousands of people stowed away on it. They have families and stories and lives in places that are named. And it is our responsibility to make the invisible visible again by remembering them; by acknowledging that island and naming it on our maps.

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