Mary Buser LCSW
Mary Buser, LCSW, worked as a clinical social worker in the Mental Health Department on Rikers Island during the Giuliani administration's celebrated crackdown on crime.
She began her Rikers sojourn as a student intern at the Rose Singer Center, where she provided therapy to incarcerated women, including a support group for mothers in the island's nursery.
After earning her Master's degree, she returned to Rikers to work at the George Motchan Detention Center, a maximum-security facility for male detainees. Here, she provided both individual and group therapy to the general population, as well as to the jail's mentally ill inmates.
Three years later, 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 jail system's most seriously mentally ill inmates.
