Movie Descriptions
PRISONERS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS: This video documentary is a gripping look at what prison life is really like from those who are experiencing it. The documentary takes you into three different prisons, one in New Jersey, Bedford Hills Women's penitentiary and Oklahoma State Reformatory. It includes interviews with several of the inmates on their daily lives, how they got there and how they survive. This documentary was nominated for one Emmy for Outstanding Information Special and one CableACE award for Outstanding Educational Special.INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY: Director Kirsten Johnson will discuss her documentary, "Innocent Until Proven Guilty". This documentary sheds light on the alarming statistic that one third of all African-American men between the ages of 16 and 35 are currently under the supervision of the criminal justice system. "Through the eyes of a 31 year old African-American public defender in Washington, D.C., the film takes an intimate look at how young black men and women get caught up in the criminal justice system and how they can end this cycle."
LOCK UP: THE PRISONERS OF RIKERS ISLAND: The program profiles a variety of everyday jail activities, including such jarring scenes as a cell block strip search by corrections officers, the story of an AIDS-infected drug user who was born in prison and will most likely die there, a trip to the holding cell for "disorganized and paranoid" prisoners, and the laments of women who will see their children born in jail.
THEY'RE DOING MY TIME: The anguish mothers face when behind bars and their limited contact with their children are brought to light in this dramatic look at women in prison and their children. The emotional struggle mothers and their children go through when separated and the different ways in which women's prisons handle these issues forces the viewer to analyze where society went wrong and what could be done to minimize or eliminate this cycle of emotional destruction.
THE FARM : ANGOLA: The Farm prods us, at every juncture of these inmates' lives, to consider what exactly we seek to accomplish when we incarcerate criminals for years and years. Ultimately, The Farm is about whether, in our system of justice, there is ever the possibility of forgiveness for those, seemingly rehabilitated, who nevertheless have done terrible deeds.
SLAM: Extraordinary fly-on-the-wall filmmaking technique makes this story of a D.C. ghetto victim seem absolutely real from start to finish. While in jail awaiting his trial, he discovers that freedom is a state of mind, not a state of the body, and uses his poetry as a means of relief from the chaos and violence surrounding him. Once he is out on bail, Joshua preaches a message of non-violence to those around him. All the while, he is pondering his options for the trial: cooperate and go free by ratting on his friends, cop a plea and go to jail for 2 years, or plead "not guilty" and risk serving a 10-year sentence.
Elayne Rapping on TABLOID CRIME SHOWS: Professor Rapping, a media expert in the Department of Women's Studies, will discuss the shift in media representations of crime and punishment in the last decade, in the context of recent shifts to the right in criminal justice policy, and public opinion generally. Using clips from tabloid series like "COPS", "America's Most Wanted," and the HBO prison series "Oz," and contrasting them with examples from earlier series, she will demonstrate that the images and ideology underlying media assumptions about the nature of crime and criminality, and the proper "solutions" to the problems they raise for the community, have become less and less representative of [the] liberal democratic thought and policy.
Ed Steinfeld- EASTERN STATE PENITENTIARY: This documentary of Eastern State Penitentiary gives a detailed history of the prison form its initial practice of total solitary confinement through its transformation into an overcrowded "Big House" to its replacement with a modern facility in 1970. Using the Eastern State Penitentiary as an example, Professor Steinfeld from the Department of Architecture & Planning will lead a discussion on the influence of prison architecture in controlling privacy through visual access and exposure, and the spatial syntax which not only reinforces social control but also reflects the power structure of prison society.