Bail is Busted: How Jail Really Works [View all]

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http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-04-25/news/bail-is-busted-new-york-jail/



Lauren DiGioia's face was stony and impassive beneath bright blue hair as she was brought into a courtroom in handcuffs on March 18.

At 2:30 the previous afternoon, DiGioia, 27, had become the first person arrested by the New York City Police Department during Occupy Wall Street's six-month anniversary at Zuccotti Park. DiGioia was taken in for dancing on the public sidewalk outside the park after police told her not to.

"Four police officers forced me to my knees," DiGioia recalls. "They put the zip cuffs on really tight, and then they threw me in the paddy wagon."

DiGioia was initially taken to the Seventh Precinct, but because she was being charged with resisting arrest along with disorderly conduct, she was moved to central booking and thrown into a cell holding about 35 other women. Charismatic and garrulous, DiGioia was soon talking with the other inmates.

"A lot of the women I met that night were in on really minor charges," she says. "Marijuana, petty theft, getting in a fight in a nightclub. They were sort of shocked that I'd been arrested for dancing on the sidewalk, but it didn't surprise them because they see stuff like that in their marginalized neighborhoods—people stop-and-frisked and profiled for the way they look."