Taking Photos Behind Bars

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So I was visiting a young man behind bars a few weeks ago and saw that there was –let's call him "the prison photographer" — another prisoner — snapping photos of a mother and her kids.  They stood near the children's area where there was a TV with a penguin cartoon and a few books and benches.  And behind the "set," because that's what it looked like to me, a stage setting, was a mural.  Murals in visiting rooms are actually pretty remarkable.  In this prison there were several murals on the walls, not disimilar to this visiting room at Graterford Prison in Pennsylvania –although not nearly as clean and without tables.

  But the images are their own kind of art.  And prison murals– well that's a subject for another day — but they are amazing. 

So I asked if we could get our picture taken, and OK I wasn't technically a family member but a few nods here and a few nods there and we were standing in front of the Project Youth Mural which was yellows and browns with a big banner across muted people representing the men who speak to schools about their lives — Project Youth.  We posed, we smiled, we looked at one shot and then another and we did what everyone does when they get pictures taken — want to make sure it's a good shot.

And then came the kicker.  There was gonna be a charge to the prisoner I was visiting.  The state was charging the prisoner and oh boy, how much did the photo on that digital camera cost?  I am anxious to see the bill to the young man I visit who makes nickels and dimes behind bars and has to buy all his toiletries at the canteen.  So, photo or bath soap?  And it wasn't exactly like I had five bucks in my pocket in the prison visiting room so I could slip the photographer some money.  Plus, he wasn't the one who would be getting the money.  I'll have to wait to find out but I'm betting $5.00.

But, overall, I gotta give props to these photo programs, called "Click Clicks" in New York.  At least if you're locked up, you can appear happy and transported to a desert isle and freeze yourself in time somewhere in space — with your loved ones. 


Phoning Home or Feeding Your Kids?

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It struck me this past summer when I went to a hearing at the Department of Telecommunications and Cable (DTC) that communication is not a high priority for prison phone companies.  Nope, you can't expect a telephone company to care about the quality of contact when they're raking in money.

Bet you didn't know for some prisoners — after connection fees, after dropped calls, in other words, after incredible frustration — it costs an average of $30 for a 20 minute call from a Massachusetts prison to a loved one.  Bet you wouldn't guess that there's an extra charge to reconnect when a call is dropped. And this is not confined to Massachusetts.

Most of us wouldn't blink an eye about the number of people behind bars who are unemployed and can't talk to their kids or husbands or sisters or dads because they can't afford it.  It wasn't high in my consciousness and I worked in a prison.  Nope, not in this age of calling everywhere for a fixed fee; not in the age of skype.  But surprise, surprise, as if punishment wasn't enough, we now have keep-your-loved-ones-away by creating telephone policies that create more pain.  Prisoners want phone calls so much that a standard punishment behind bars has become taking away phone privileges for a week or so.

Prisoners' Legal Services was asking the DTC to investigate the phone service, both cost and quality.  And after listening to some of the testimony, I was up in arms. My cell phone dropped calls drive me crazy.  My Comcast poor TV reception drives me crazier.  Imagine being in prison and having those problems magnified by gazillions?

One woman testified that she has three sons incarcerated.  She has to get funds from family members and friends to make phone calls.  Another said she has an overdrawn bank account from supporting her friend behind bars.  An attorney testified that a 16 year-old mentally ill client of hers who had never been away from his family is in prison for life; the family cannot afford to call him every day; and he needs that contact to stay sane.

TO STAY SANE PEOPLE.  We are talking about helping incarcerated men and women become better citizens aren't we?  Or are we back to that same old conversation that punishment rather than rehabilitation is the only point of prison. 

►Here's a site to find out more about phone justice for prisoners.  And let's remember, we can only tacklie our criminal justice system, brick by brick.

Are You Kidding Me?

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This is Shylock from my production of The Merchant of Venice which I directed at Framingham Women's Prison in 1988, a year my students at Middlesex Community College now say is before they were born.  But it was the beginning of my amazing run behind bars, directing eight plays where I saw women transform their hopes and dreams.  They grew stronger, felt more confident and as one woman, Dolly, who played Antonio said, "We were stars."

Theatre behind bars allows prisoners all the benefits of what art allows any of us — and added to that — it gives prisoners a chance to have access to a world they've often felt excluded from — a world that education gives them access to.   All studies done on prisoners show that the more education you have, the more likely you are to stay out of prison.  Education = less crime.  Except maybe in the case of bankers and politicians. And guess what?  READING SHAKESPEARE IS EDUCATION.

Sorry I had to yell.  But that's part of why I couldn't believe it when I heard that University of Wisconsin Professor, Jonathan Shailor, had been told he could not continue his Shakespeare Program in prison.  Like me, Shailor has had the joy of watching people behind bars change, read more to their kids, get into college after they get out or hold down steady jobs.  He began his program in 2004; had a hiatus; and this year had a grant to begin again.

He was told–okay hold onto your seats — by the Department of Correction — and they do not correct much as far as I can see — he was told that his Shakespeare program did not fit the definition of  an "evidence-based practice."

(Take breath, Jean)  So I know that "evidence-based" is the new hot term in many pools I dip my toe in — education, criminal justice, medicine — BUT reading and studying Shakespeare is not evidence-based?  Performing plays is not evidence-based?  All you have to do is read one of many studies, anecdotal or hard studies, some that I am sure Jonathan provided to the prison.  All you have to do is READ. 

I have to say that it's a crime not to know how arts change lives.  Maybe the Wisconsin officials should have read Jonathan's book that I was happy to be a part of Performing New Lives, where practitioners of theatre in prison all across the country talk about the amazing men and women who transform themselves through the arts.

Or they could watch this amazing video to see that there's "evidence" in these photos:  Somebody Teach me to Embed a Video

My Humorous Take on Deadly Serious Subjects

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Welcome to the Fun House…

So hello to my blog, "Justice with Jean" where I intend to talk about all things prison, parole and probation.  And believe it or not, there's a lot to laugh at regarding our criminal justice system.  I mean if you're not crying or screaming your lungs out at the amount of, let's see, shall I say "stupidity?" or maybe "irrationality" or in a pinch, "the ultimately impossible to explain?"

So, for a moment, come with me to a medium security prison.  Imagine you want to visit a loved one.  Now seriously, make it someone you like a lot or else this won't work.  You don't mind filling out a form, putting things in a locker like keys and money.  You understand policy.  Hey, you know why you have to take your shoes off and let them look in your mouth and behind your ears and hey, it's no biggie when your bra sets the machine off and you have to go into what looks like a closet to be wanded. No biggie.  It's prison.

You have no idea when you enter the not so receptive "reception area" that you can buy a chit, a thingie that functions like a debit card, and after you enter the Visiting Room, you'll be able to buy him a sandwich and yourself a diet coke to wash down the fury you are about to feel. 

So, eventually you're in this big warehousey room.  Prisoners are sitting in those plastic chairs that kind of look like saucer cups from a fun house ride.  The chairs are spaced with about a foot of white in between each one and they're all attached.  So there are six lines of these chairs and they are NOT civil.  Like you have to keep your back pressed against the chair, your hands in your lap and if there are three of you, then you are sitting in a little line, actually all facing straight ahead with correction officers coming around and telling you not to lean forward.  

They are not like this:  which would not be so bad since you are at least facing the person or people who are visiting you (overlooking the fact that the prisoner is the one marked in scarlet letter tones.)

 

And they are not like this:  which also has some potential for not killing your neck and actually hearing a conversation. No, visiting is more like what Jim Ridgeway describes in his fabulous article about medical parole in Mother Jones: "Prisoners and visitors may sit next to, but not opposite, one another. They must keep their feet flat on the floor at all times and their backs against the chair backs. Guards posted at stations at either end of the room roam about." 

And surprise, they don't just roam about.  They tell you not to sit forward.  They tell you not to touch.  They remind you over a loud speaker too.  The sound in a visiting room is deafening with acoustics like some sort of locker room from hell. So forget hearing.

Who visits in a line, huh?  Who?  Apparently Massachusetts.  And Oregon:  Although in Oregon, at least prisoners can sit close enough to talk across the aisle.  Here, we strap in, sit back and forget having a real conversation.