“All that jail did was made me an animal. I didn’t come in no animal. You know what I’m saying, I didn’t come in there with the intentions of causing bodily harm to anybody. You know, I was more or less trying to make sure I’m alright.” Harvey Murphy
Narrators discuss the violence on Rikers Island. The collection has numerous examples of violence that is both experienced and witnessed but also overall there is a feeling that Rikers does violence to everyone, in other words this is a pervasive sense within all of the themes.