RIKERS (PBS)

PRODUCER

2017 Robert F. Kennedy Award for Media Advocacy

2016 Nominee - DOC NYC Metropolis Grand Jury Prize

Currently streaming on pbs.org/rikers

"No one understands the crisis created by mass incarceration and excessive punishment like the survivors who have endured the horrors created by our criminal justice policies. This is powerful journalism, transformational art and an unmistakable indictment of the American prison system."
Bryan Stevenson - Founder, Equal Justice Initiative

The United States is facing a crisis of mass incarceration with over 2.2 million people packed into its jails and prisons. To understand the human toll of this crisis, Rikers Island is a good place to start. Of the more than 7,500 people detained at Rikers Island on any given day, almost 80% have not yet been found guilty or innocent of the charges they face. All are at risk in the pervasive culture of violence that forces people to come to terms with what they must do for their own survival. RIKERS, a film from Bill Moyers, premiered on PBS in May 2017, and brings viewers face to face with men and women who have endured incarceration at Rikers Island. Their stories, told direct to camera, vividly describe the cruel arc of the Rikers experience—from the shock of entry, to the extortion and control exercised by other inmates, the oppressive interaction with corrections officers, the beatings and stabbings, the torture of solitary confinement and the many challenges of returning to the outside world. Read more about the film, and America's incarceration crisis here.

Produced by: Marc Levin, Mark Benjamin, Rolake Bamgbose

Executive Editor: Bill Moyers

Executive Producer: Judy Doctoroff