Rikers Island has a decades-long reputation of spiraling dysfunction, brutality, and even death against those awaiting trial.
The East River prison allowed Eyewitness News onto their grounds to witness the triumph and determination of young detainees, awaiting their cases to be adjudicated by the courts.
As their future is uncertain, these 63 students, graduating from high school at Rikers, are beating the drum of redemption, behind the cinderblock walls they live behind…