PrisonVideo

Prison Videos, Data Visualizations, etc

• Data visualizations and information websites, and a documentary:

• Prison Policy Initiative Prison Policy Initiative]: A good up-to-date overview of prison facts and some popular myths about the US prison system. Updated to 2023!

• The Atlantic, data visualization on incarceration of African Americans [1]

• Data visualization on mass incarceration. [2]

• 13th - Netflix Film [3] 13th is a feature film documenting how our incarceration system is deeply rooted in racism and slavery. The rise of our prison population over the past decades can be attributed to seeing people of color, mainly black people, as dangerous criminals. Capitalism also plays a pivotal role in the incarceration system as keeping more people in prison funds corporations like ALEC, further perpetuating the cycle of imprisonment. Movements like the war on drugs targeted black communities, putting more of these ‘dangerous criminals’ behind bars for what were mostly low-level drug offenses while white people were only given a slap on the wrist for the same or worse possessions. Slavery and other racist stereotypes and movements have led to our prison population increasing by over 500% since 1970, causing about 1/3 of black men to face imprisonment in their lifetimes.

• Crime rates by country [4]
• Homicide rates by country [5]

• Reformed prisons:

• Norwegian prison, [6]

• Inside a Finnish prison and Finnish prison reform. [7]

• This video shows several prisons in Finland that seem even more humane than those shown in the video about Norway's prisons. The video discusses their "open prisons," which provide prisoners with their own cars and allow them to leave for various activities. They also provide education, teaching the inmates technology skills and other things.

• Videos on American and UK Prisons

• US Supermax prison, “Red Onion” [8]

• ”When kids do hard time,” Wabash Prison, [9]. This is about 45 minutes. There is a longer version online.

• This is What It’s Like to Spend Your Life in Prison [10]. This is a short video listening to the experiences of men who are serving life in Angola Prison, Louisiana. Many of these men are elderly and have not seen the outside world or their families in decades. One man couldn’t even recognize a camera because he has been locked away for so long. Many of these men have committed terrible crimes like murder but they claim they have changed and grown. There are more than 50,000 prisoners nationwide facing life without parole. It costs about $70,000 per aging inmate which is billions in taxpayer money per year. These men have already served lengthy sentences and have lived most of their lives in prison. Many of these men were teenagers when they committed their crimes and now they want a second chance to redeem themselves, prove they’ve changed, and receive their freedom once again.

• View of prisoner care at ADX Supermax in Colorado. [11]

• Wandsworth Prison in UK. [12], [13]

• These last two videos are about Wandsworth Prison, one of the largest prisons in the United Kingdom. This is a foreign example of a prison that is more similar to the circumstances in the United States. The videos discuss overcrowding, understaffing, corruption, inmates' self-harm, and a major drug problem inside the prison.

• Restorative Justice video.

• [Meeting with a Killer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxk7X7PXCOY]. Restorative Justice film in which family victims of a murder choose to correspond with and contact the murderer.