When Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility over the weekend, they left behind roughly 3,000 inmates. According to one of those inmates, life on the inside has been considerably more difficult since their dramatic exit.

Over the past several months, as the culture of brutality at Rikers Island has become harder and harder to ignore, New York's corrections department has gestured toward reform. Incompetent officials resigning, thuggish guards punished when in the past they'd be given high fives and told to keep their mouths shut. We know there's a problem, officials are saying, but we're making it better. Don't believe them.