Kenneth Inniss

Kenneth Inniss grew up in Brooklyn and Queens. When he first arrived at Rikers in 1987, he was a married 27-year-old with two children. He remembers the overwhelming noise of the mess hall on his first day at Rikers. He had heard that Rikers was a violent, predatory place, so he avoided confrontations by minimizing his time on his dorm's phones and not carrying any money on him. His job in the mess hall kept his spirits up, as did getting his laundry cleaned and pressed every week. After serving two years at Rikers, Inniss served more than two decades in state prison. He now works with people incarcerated in the state prison system, doing re-entry planning. (Summary written by: Annie Anderson)