Monthly Archives: September 2019

Jail-Attributable Deaths



As chief medical officer for New York City jails, Homer Venters realized early in his tenure that for many people dying in jail, the primary cause of death was jail itself. To document these deaths, Venters and his team created a statistical category no one had dared to compile before: “jail-attributable deaths.” His work led him into frequent opposition with the security services. It also led to his book, Life and Death in Rikers Island, about New York City’s notoriously violent jail facility.

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Art vs. Mass Incarceration



Can art transform the criminal justice system? On this special edition of New Thinking, host Matt Watkins sits down with two New York City artists on the rise—Derek Fordjour and Shaun Leonardo—who both work with our Project Reset to provide an arts-based alternative to court and a criminal record for people arrested on a low-level charge. With the program set to expand city-wide, the three discuss art’s potential to help heal a racialized criminal justice system.

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