

Three Years on Rikers Without Trial - aakilfernandes
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-law

======
Zikes
I've lost track of the number of examples showing how fundamentally broken the
US justice system is. Corruption, abuse, and just plain bureaucratic
incompetence abound, and at any time any one of us could get swept up in it
with little to no recourse.

And the worst of it is that there's no sign of it stopping. No efforts to fix
the system, only the occasional story of one or two particular cases getting
the chance they should have got years ago, and only because of a massive
publicity campaign.

It's little wonder Aaron Swartz took his life. Staring down the massive barrel
of the United States judicial system, which makes up rules it never holds
itself to. It is a system designed to instill hopelessness and despair upon
anyone it turns its gaze to.

------
sctb
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8403451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8403451)

------
Delmania
Follow up article: [http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/kalief-browder-
and-a...](http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/kalief-browder-and-a-change-
at-rikers)

Efforts are being made to quicken this, but little can be done to reverse the
damage done to this young.

