| Twenty years ago the Lower East Side was a drug dealer’s paradise. A good day meant a heroin supplier was looking at $100 000 of pure profit. Even the runners, advertisers, and lookouts were getting several thousand dollars a shift. There was more money than the thugs knew what to do with and there were enough addicts to make the supply go on forever. Then, in the mid-80s, a crackdown began that landed everyone from Avenue A to the East River in prison.
When people first started arriving into New York state prisons things were lax. You could show up with two huge gym bags of books, clothes, bathroom supplies and even drugs. As the population of the prisons doubled, and then tripled, shit got heated. The prison guards were forced to revoke all rights and freedoms to keep gang violence under control. Today a first day inmate is lucky to get a bible filled with phone numbers past the guards. This overpopulation has lead to less funding per prisoner and, subsequently less rehabilitation programs. In 2001 life in the hole is all about sleeping, staring at the wall and making sure your shoes are tied.
And the revolving door of New York’s prison system gets worse every day.
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