"What happens when you jam almost a dozen jails, bulging at the seams with society's cast-offs, onto a spit of landfill, purposefully hidden from public view and named after the family of a judge who sent escaped slaves and free Black men to plantations in the South? Prize-winning journalists Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau have spent two years interviewing more than 130 people comprising a broad cross-section of lives Rikers has touched-from detainees and their relatives to officers, lawyers, and commissioners, with stories spanning from the 1970s to the present day. The deeply personal accounts that emerge call into question the very nature of justice in America. Offering a 360-degree view inside the country's largest detention complex for the first time, their voices take readers on a harrowing journey into every corner of Rikers-a failed society unto itself that reflects society's failings as a whole"-- Provided by publisher.