Mary Buser was an assistant chief of Mental Health on Rikers Island during the Giuliani administration's infamous crackdown on crime, when the island's census hovered at 20,000 detainees.

 

Her Rikers sojourn began when she interned at the Rose M. Singer Center, providing therapy to incarcerated women, including a support group for mothers in the nursery.

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After earning her master’s degree from Columbia University, she returned to Rikers to work with male detainees, where she provided both individual and group therapy to those in the general population, as well as to people with a serious mental illness.  

 

Three years later, Ms. Buser was promoted to an assistant mental health chief.  In this capacity, she supervised treatment at the Mental Health Center, the 350-bed facility for the city's most seriously mentally ill people. Ms. Buser’s final post was the 500-cell Central Punitive Segregation Unit, aka, the “Bing.”  Here, Ms. Buser supervised a mental health team in treating those held in solitary confinement.  

 

In 2015, Ms. Buser published Lockdown on Rikers: Shocking Stories of Abuse and Injustice at New York’s Notorious Jail, an account of her experiences at Rikers Island. In 2016, her book won the Brooklyn Eagles/Brooklyn Public Library literary award for non-fiction.

 

In 2021, based on her work in the Rikers solitary confinement unit, Ms. Buser was asked to testify before the Nevada Senate Judiciary Committee. There, she met Frank De Palma, a man who had spent 22 years and 36 days in solitary confinement. Based on his testimony, recounting his torturous decades in isolation, coupled with the remarkable circumstances surrounding his 43-year prison stint, she wrote her second book, in collaboration with Mr. De Palma, titled Never to Surrender! 22 Years in Solitary: The Battle for My Soul in a U.S. Prison. Their book has been assigned reading at numerous university classes focused on criminal justice.  

Ms. Buser is a founding member and Co-director of Social Workers & Allies Against Solitary Confinement, which focuses on education about solitary, advocacy and support of solitary confinement survivors.

 

Earlier in her career, Ms. Buser co-founded and served as Executive Director of The Samaritans of New York, a suicide prevention hotline.  In this capacity, she assisted the New York City Police Department in the production of a suicide prevention film that was subsequently shown to all incoming cadets.  Ms. Buser also testified before the New York City Council as to the extent of teenage suicide citywide.