Skip to main content

Families of Rikers Island Inmates: A Photographer’s Focus [JJIE.org]

 

Every day an estimated 1,500 family members and friends of those incarcerated on New York’s Rikers Island visit their loved ones. The only way on and off the island for visitors is to take the Q100 bus across the bridge. For several months, Queen-based photographer Salvador Espinoza rode the bus back and forth, documenting the stories of the people, mostly women and children, who visit the more than 10,000 people who are detained each day at the jail. He recently exhibited his photography, called Q100, at the QNS Collective in Queens. Espinoza spoke with JJIE and Youth Today about his experience and his photography.

Was it hard to get people to talk to you, to trust you with their stories?

No, they liked to talk, they’re eager to have their story told. And it also takes their mind off everything that they’re thinking of and going through. A lot of them are taking two-hour trips or three-hour trips and then waiting for another three or four hours just to get in. They just want to get their mind off it and it helps for them to be able to get it all out. They like to know that people are interested. I would never ask them what the inmate’s in there for, it was really all about them.



[For more of this story written by Karen Savage, go to http://jjie.org/2017/01/31/foc...r-salvador-espinoza/]

Add Comment

Comments (0)

Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×