Three Years to Life: the Kalief Browder Story

Ten years ago, 16-year-old Kalief Browder was a New York teen arrested and accused of stealing a backpack in the Bronx; today, it’s been just over five years since he took his own life.

The story of Kalief Browder is one of both great injustices and remarkable courage. Unable to make bail after his arrest, Browder remained locked in Rikers Island, one of America’s toughest prisons, while he awaited trial for three years — two of which he spent in solitary confinement. Despite Rikers being rampant with brutal violence from both inmates and correctional officers, Kalief remained incessantly headstrong about proving his innocence. Between June 2011 and February 2013, he was offered 13 plea deals and refused each and every one of them (Carter, 2017), declaring he would not confess to something he did not do. Then, in 2013, the court dismissed the case after finding the prosecution guilty of dragging out the case while trying to locate its witness, and Browder was released as an innocent man.

The docuseries, TIME: The Kalief Browder Story, produced by Jay-Z revolving around this case sheds light on the great injustices that Browder had to suffer through at the hands of the prison system. Including real surveillance camera footage, interviews from former inmates, family members, scholars, celebrities, and Kalief himself, TIME gives a thorough look into what really goes on behind the bars of America’s prisons. While the series is posed as an exposé of the corruption engulfing the prison system, Kalief Browder is the one who ended up taking the brunt of the consequences.

The key difference that led to Browder becoming the vulnerable party, rather than the prison system, is that he is an individual, not an institution. He was easily identifiable; people were able to point at him specifically and say, “what happened to him was terrible!” instead of trying to comprehend that it is, in fact, the prison system as a whole that was to blame. So, instead of the public focusing on Rikers Island and the prison system, Kalief Browder and his life were shoved into the spotlight for everyone to see. However, in Browder’s eyes, any attention on the injustices he faced was worth it — even if it was to his detriment. From increasing paranoia, enemies targeting him for his assumed increased wealth and more, Kalief suffered through the many physical and mental consequences of his media presence to ensure he told his story.

After facing three years of hell at Rikers, I believe Browder just wanted his story to be heard and justice to be served, not only for himself but also for anybody facing a similar situation. He was determined not to let his time imprisoned mean nothing, no matter at what cost.

References

#CommEthicsWeek9

Carter, S. (Executive Producer). (2017). TIME: The Kalief Browder Story. [Docuseries]. Roc Nation.

Lauricella, S. (2020, August 17). Picturing justice for Kalief Browder: Documentary film and the ethics of media advocacy. Media Ethics Initiative. https://mediaethicsinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/88-browder-documentery-case-study.pdf