Doing Time: Life Inside the Big House

Alan and Susan Raymond's Academy Award-nominated "Doing Time: Life Inside the Big House" focuses on the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. It features interviews with the inmates, the guards, and even the warden. It looks like one tough existence in there, and the prisoners will probably have a hard time reintegrating into society once they get out.

The documentary mentions that the US leads the world in incarceration. At the time, the prison population was 1.5 million; now it's over 2 million, most of them black and Latino. The documentary also mentions the sentencing reform that caused the prison population to swell. I suspect that the things experienced by the inmates in Lewisburg - including the plumbing issue - happen in prisons all over the US.

The basic point of the documentary is that these men are human beings, and their mistakes sent them to this hellhole. Indeed, it's the so-called War on Drugs* has disproportionately targeted non-white people and devastated entire communities. As long as we have these regressive laws, the prisons will almost certainly remain filled.

*One of Nixon's cabinet members later admitted that the purpose of the War on Drugs was to destroy both the anti-war movement and the Black Power movement.

I saw this film at a progressive festival and was fascinated. The filmmakers were allowed unlimited access - some scenes are graphic. And all of the people involved - the inmates and the staff - are genuinely motivated to share their perspective of Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, PA. Most of the inmates appear to have serious mental illnesses and its obvious that the conditions at the prison are exacerbating the situation. Did I feel sorry for these men? Yes. While the warden demonstrated caring honesty with the inmates in disciplinary lock-up, it seemed obvious that the institution was underfunded and bereft of ideas. We would do well to verify whether the toilets are flushing.