City Time: On Being Sentenced to Rikers Island

by David Campbell, Jarrod Shanahan

A unique insider perspective of daily life in New York City’s most notorious house of correctionWhile most people behind bars at Rikers Island are detainees awaiting the settlement of their cases, a smaller population have already been convicted and are serving sentences deemed too short for the state prison system. These stints are called “city time.” The sentences range from a few days to a year, and are generally served within large, open dormitories lacking in privacy and sanitation. Within these spaces, incarcerated people reproduce an elaborate set of rules, rituals, and relationships, as a means both of survival and of giving meaning to the time taken from them.Written by David Campbell and Jarrod Shanahan, who both served sentences at Rikers, City Time reflects its authors’ personal experiences and observations of short-stay incarceration to present a nuanced and vivid account of a social world kept locked away from the public eye. The authors reconstruct the daily realities of sanitation, nourishment, recreation, work, and other necessary activities, and emphasize the complex interpersonal relationships that emerge in response to city time. Simultaneously, they paint a grim and urgent picture of structural racism, class violence, and the disastrous lack of mental health and substance abuse resources for poor New Yorkers, who are shuttled in and out of city time sentences as “frequent flyers.”Beginning with the authors’ own processes of intake, and ending with the ritual of late-night release, City Time takes readers behind the splashy headlines to depict, in intimately human terms, the rich and variegated social world unfolding, at this very moment, on Rikers Island.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

328 pages, Hardcover

First published January 7, 2025

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

City Time offers an unfiltered glimpse into life at New York City’s Rikers Island. Written by David Campbell and Jarrod Shanahan, both of whom experienced incarceration there, the book paints a vivid picture of survival, rituals, and relationships within the notorious correctional facility. From intake to late-night release, it sheds light on structural issues and the lack of mental health resources for detainees. A powerful and urgent read.” 📚🗽🔒

[lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Given that I live only a few miles away from Rikers yet knew so little about it, I was immediately interested by this new release. Campbell and Shanahan brilliantly capture the facts and experiences of their time at Rikers, with colorful anecdotes and scenes. Some smart quips made me guiltily chuckle, and kept the book an overall easy read. The highly sectioned style of the book kept me on track, reading more like an academic paper, but still kept me engaged. Glad to have read this book.

[Randal White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having spent over 20 years working in Federal prisons, I was drawn to this book. Riker's Island. Just the name conjures up a whole host of thoughts to me. I met many inmates who have been incarcerated at Riker's, and not one of them ever had anything good to say about it. In fact, they hated it more than the maximum security Federal institutions.
I was impressed with the book the authors turned out. They do a good job of describing the layout of the detention facility. Honestly, I had no idea that the place was as big as it is. They discuss everything from a prisoner's first day up to the day he is released.
It's a very good book. Very thorough, although at times a bit too thorough. It's a moderately easy read, and kept me engaged and interested throughout.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is involved in corrections. You will learn a lot. I did!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

[Maud · Rating 5 out of 5]

What surprised me most about this book is how normal and boring the day to day of prison life seemed. Really this just highlights the arbitrariness of who is criminalized and who is not. People doing time are the same people trying to get by on the outside. Really interesting to read about the inmate strike during COVID, the support and cooperation between the incarcerated men, the little acts of insubordination and ways to create a life doing the best with what they can. At the VERY LEAST, if the carceral system isn’t violence (it is) it is a waste of money, of peoples lives and time, absurd, disruptive, and disorienting.
I was not, however, surprised at how readable a text this university press book is.

[Sharon Johnson]

Two authors separate detailed experiences on their time spent in jail on Rikers Island.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent "expose" of this infamous jail.