For six months, Heather Packer, along with a team of 11 hairdressers and other beauty pros, has been trekking to New York City’s Rikers Island jail to teach cosmetology skills to women inmates. Packer is a hairstylist and educator at the luxury Red Door Salon in New York City, where a haircut starts at $75. She’s styled hair at fashion shows and magazine photo shoots, as well as for celebrities like Cate Blanchett and Jennifer Lopez. Rikers could not be further from that rarefied world. It is one of the most notorious jails in the United States, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has committed to shutting it down by 2027. But there are still about 10,000 people housed there on any given day, about 7 percent of whom are women. The women are kept in the Rose M. Singer Center, the all-female wing. Nicknamed “Rosie,” it was the subject of a recent story in New York magazine detailing its high rate of sexual abuse, often perpetrated by guards. Jails differ from prisons in that they are local and usually meant for shorter-term stays, for people awaiting trial, for those who can’t afford bail, or for people serving short sentences. But inmates at Rikers sometimes stay there for years at a time, and many can’t afford the large bail amounts set by judges. (The case of Kalief Browder, who took his own life after being in Rikers for three years for a crime he was never convicted for, brought a lot of attention to the conditions at Rikers.) Packer says the women are there for anywhere from a few days up to five years. “The system does not support those who lack resources, whether that be money, access to legal support, or social service support,” she says. Through her program, Fearless Beauty, she identifies women who are interested in cosmetology and teaches them skills and instills confidence and a sense of community while they’re being held at Rikers. |
