If you're arrested in New York City and can't make bail, you'll be sent to Rikers Island -- a mammoth holding facility for 17,000 men and women awaiting trial. TV journalist Jon Alpert spent ten months filming there, coming away with a graphic and unblinking portrait of life inside America's largest jail complex, including a moving look at the human faces behind the statistics.
Direction
Alpert's ten-month access is unprecedented and fearless.
Editing
Raw footage shaped into devastating narrative momentum.
Director
Jon Alpert
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Jon Alpert smuggled cameras into Rikers by building relationships over months—no guards, no officials, just inmates trusting him enough to let him witness their reality.
This 1994 HBO documentary predates mass incarceration becoming mainstream conversation by decades; it was screening in activist circles while politicians were still competing to be 'tougher' than each other.
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