Tyrrell Muhammad
By Audrey Abrahams, Miles Barth, Walker Whalen, Jasmine Woo, Kenna Mirzayan, and Maia Paszamant
Even during a heatwave, Tyrrell Muhammad still wears upscale three-piece suits to work. Muhammad is a fifty-nine-year-old man from New York who enjoys playing sports games on his Xbox 360 and spending time with his family. The average person who saw him on the street would never know about his life in prison. Muhammad was arrested when he was 19 for his involvement in a robbery that resulted in a homicide, and spent 7 years of his 27-year incarceration in solitary confinement.
Muhammad has worked as the Monitoring Associate at the Correctional Association of New York (CANY), the only independent organization within New York that has legal access to state prisons, since 2012. He is one of only six staff members of the organization. He is also a founding member of the New York chapter of the Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC). Muhammad works to improve the conditions within New York State prisons that he experienced firsthand.
During his time in prison, he experienced some of the same injustices that he is fighting today. He also experienced brutality from guards in multiple prisons. He tells the story of a particularly violent event at the Clinton Correctional Facility where he was brutally beaten by multiple guards. He was accidentally caught up in a fight he wasn’t a part of, resulting in a broken leg. He was able to take advantage of his time in solitary confinement, though painful, to improve himself. With rules prohibiting any talking in solitary confinement, he began reading to keep busy. He read Readers Digests, National Geographic, Forbes Magazine, many classic novels, and whatever else he could find. During his time in prison, he wanted to take advantage of whatever programs he could benefit from, getting his GED and a degree in liberal arts from Syracuse University. He was released on parole in 2005.
When he got out of prison, Muhammad lived in a shelter until his friends helped him find an apartment that he stayed in for three months. Muhammad found it difficult to transition to the outside world, saying, “Being responsible for your time now, instead of someone else controlling your time, you know? I always like to get places either ahead of time or on time.” In addition to this, he initially struggled with exposure to the technological advancements in the outside world. When he was in prison, he was not allowed access to technology. Muhammad was embarrassed about his lack of exposure to technology and needing his young niece to teach him how to use simple electronics such as iPhones. Due to his time in solitary confinement, he still struggles with sleep, waking up at 4:35 every morning.
Muhammad also faced discrimination from potential employers across the city, as well as society as a whole. When the employers were not concerned with his criminal record, it was his lack of job experience, due to his arrest at 19. His first job was with a construction company, but he was fired after only three days. He then decided to create his own security company, Force One International, hiring other people who were formerly incarcerated. After the company got a major contract with IKEA, he elected to sell the corporation. Eventually, due to his experiences in jails and prisons, Muhammad became a very active volunteer around the issue of prison reform and was invited to apply to the Correctional Association of New York.
Muhammad takes great pride in the work CANY is doing in order to improve the lives of those who are incarcerated, stating, “I always tell people, I wish someone would have done what I am doing now for me.”
