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Filled with quotes from men and women prisoners and Kornfeld's own anecdotes, Cellblock Visions shows how these artists, most of them having no previous training, turn to their work for a sense of self-worth, an opportunity to vent rage, or a way to find peace. We see how the artists deal with the cramped space, limited light, and narrow vistas of their prison studios, and how the security bans on many art supplies lead them to ingenious resourcefulness, as in extracting color from shampoo and weaving with cigarette wrappers. Kornfeld covers the traditional prison arts, such as soap carving and tattoo, and devotes a major section to painting, where we see miniatures depicting themes of alienation and escape, idyllic landscapes framed by bars, portraits of women living in a fantasy world, large canvasses filled with erotic and religious symbolism and violent action. The brief, vivid biographies of each artist portray that individual's experience of crime, prison, and art itself.
In the mid-1970s, Walpole State Prison had the highest murder rate of any prison in the country, and the lowest conviction rate: zero. The District Attorney's office had been pilloried by the press for its inability to get results. So when a particularly atrocious murder occurred on Thanksgiving Day, 1976, and an inmate offered to testify that he'd seen who did it, DA William Delahunt jumped at the offer. The DA's office and state police framed Stephen Doherty for the crime. It took him twenty years to prove that he was innocent. This is his story.
This collection documents the efforts of the Prison Communication, Activism, Research, and Education collective (PCARE) to put democracy into practice by merging prison education and activism. Through life-changing programs in a dozen states (Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin), PCARE works with prisoners, in prisons, and in communities to reclaim justice from the prison-industrial complex. Based on years of pragmatic activism and engaged teaching, the materials in this volume present a sweeping inventory of how communities and individuals both within and outside of prisons are marshaling the arts, edu...
A compelling look at the crisis of disadvantaged women This powerful document takes a sobering look at the phenomenon of marginalized women pushed to the edges of society, holding on with the barest of hope and extraordinary bravery. Handicapped by the increasing societal inequality they face as an everyday fact of life, these women (and in many cases, their children) have been disconnected from the mainstream for reasons of age, race, gender, health, incarceration, domestic abuse, unwanted pregnancy, unemployment, and economic circumstance. They are poor in an affluent society, powerless in a powerful nation, and the suffering caused by their exclusion is poignant and troubling. Eloquently ...
Sparking a discussion of the importance of creativity for the well-being of society, this book highlights and argues for the potential of those in prison to learn and exercise the skills of writing, visual arts, and music; to protect their intellectual property; and to distribute their works to the public, and the consequent benefits of their creative contribution to wider society. Focused on the premise that a nation’s well-being and competitive advantage in innovation are advanced by promoting the creative efforts of all its citizens without exclusion, including those residing in prisons, this book uses the United States as a case study to illuminate the potential among any nation’s pr...
America's two million incarcerated men, women, and youth live in a hidden, isolated world filled with depression, anxiety, hostility, and violence. But the nation's soaring prison population has not been forgotten by a dedicated network of visual artists, writers, poets, dancers, musicians, and actors who teach the arts in correctional settings. This anthology compiles the narratives of several accomplished arts-in-corrections teachers who share their personal experiences, philosophies, and bittersweet anecdotes, as well as practical advice, survival skills, and program evaluation guidelines. Teaching the Arts Behind Bars is an invaluable tool for artists, program administrators, and corrections professionals, and a testament to the power of creative expression in promoting communication, positive social interaction, inner healing, and self-esteem.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award A Smithsonian Book of the Year A New York Review of Books “Best of 2020” Selection A New York Times Best Art Book of the Year An Art Newspaper Book of the Year A powerful document of the inner lives and creative visions of men and women rendered invisible by America’s prison system. More than two million people are currently behind bars in the United States. Incarceration not only separates the imprisoned from their families and communities; it also exposes them to shocking levels of deprivation and abuse and subjects them to the arbitrary cruelties of the criminal justice system. Yet, as Nicole Fleetwood reveals, America’s prisons are...
Boldly and eloquently contributing to the argument against the prison system in the United States, these provocative essays offer an ideological and practical framework for empowering prisoners instead of incarcerating them. Experts and activists who have worked within and against the prison system join forces here to call attention to the debilitating effects of a punishment-driven society and offer clear-eyed alternatives that emphasize working directly with prisoners and their communities. Edited by Stephen John Hartnett, the volume offers rhetorical and political analyses of police culture, the so-called drug war, media coverage of crime stories, and the public-school-to-prison pipeline....
Offering nuanced portraits of women's lives inside razor wire and prison walls, Razor Wire Women puts incarcerated women in dialogue with scholars, artists, educators and activists who live outside of prisons but work on issues connected to the prison industrial complex. Women make up the fastest-growing group of the U.S. prison population, yet prison scholarship largely overlooks the struggles of incarcerated women, and their voices are often silenced both in and out of the prison infrastructure. From the vantage points of those both inside and outside of prisons, this collection of essays and art illuminates many of the distinct experiences and concerns of incarcerated women, including those of girls in prison, abuse and rape, the policing of women, incarcerated motherhood, mental health issues in prisons, incarcerated women's artistic and cultural production, and prisons' impact on families, health, and sexuality. Combining the transcendence, hope and clarity of art with powerful analytical and conceptual tools, Razor Wire Women reveals the gendered dimensions of the incarceration now experienced by a growing number of women in the U.S.