About Helen “Skip” Skipper

Speaker for Rikers Public Memory Project

Helen Skipper, or Skip as she prefers to be called, has been working in peer support since her final release from years of multiple incarcerations and systems involvement in 2007. She is the Executive Director of the NYC Justice Peer Initiative, a Beyond the Bars 20-21' Fellow, and an honors graduate of St. Francis College. Skip is pursuing a Master of Arts and PhD in Criminology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She is also a board member and participant of College and Community Fellowship who works with justice-involved women through community support and access to higher education. Skip has been a part of the Rikers Public Memory Project community since 2023, and is currently a Directly Impacted Design Advisor for RPMP's Mobile Exhibit. Her 2023 interview recorded as part of RPMP's Oral History Program is the source of the audio excerpt. 

Visual Description:
Medar de la Cruz, Remembering Rikers, 2023, Acrylic and watercolor on paper, 24 x 36 inches.
Two framed mixed media portraits of Helen Skipper are situated side by side. In the painting on the right Skipper’s face is fully sketched and in the background are orange squares that illustrate black, gray, and white jail items as: a food tray, a prison bed, a public phone, and a barbed fence, among others. 

In the painting on the left Skipper’s portrait is only outlined and in the background are orange squares that illustrate mostly blue and white of the same jail items.

Medar de la Cruz, Remembering Rikers, 2023, Acrylic and watercolor on paper, 24 x 36 inches.
Two framed mixed media portraits of Edwin Santana are situated side by side. In the painting on the right Santana’s face is fully sketched and in the background are orange squares that illustrate black, gray, and white jail items and sites, as: a bus, a cap, a prison lunch table, a book, and the Rikers Island Jail facility, among others.

In the painting on the left Santana’s face is only outlined and in the background are orange squares that illustrate mostly blue and white of the same jail items and sites.

Rikers Public Memory Project: Audio
A small audio player alongside headphones and transcripts of the audio text on paper are displayed on the wall.