Salaam, who was falsely accused at age 15 of gang rape and incarcerated for seven years, is hoping to use his experience to create a positive change
. It’s where he was falsely accused at age 15 of a brutal gang rape in 1989, and then incarcerated for seven years. After being found innocent in 2002, he spent the next 12 years suing the city for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination and emotional distress.The Central Park Five are widely remembered as a definitive moment in America’s fractured race relations. But now Salaam is back in New York and running for city council and criminal justice reform is central to his campaign.
Since his release in 2002, Salaam has worked as a criminal justice advocate and serves as a board member for the Innocence Project, which works to highlight cases of wrongful conviction across the US. According to a recent NAACP study, the US holds over 25% of the world’s prison population and New York has one of its highest rising incarceration rates. “Around 1,278 people have died while in state custody in the past decade,” said Salaam. “That’s one death in a New York prison every three days.”
“There exists an existential crisis right on our door that threatens the health and survival of our community,” he continued. “There are no opportunities for young people, a lack of affordable housing, no jobs that elevate us financially, no help for our seniors or mental health services for our most vulnerable. This is what we are seeing. This is what we are experiencing.
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