Whereas engaged on “The Alabama Answer,” administrators and producers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman started their analysis by observing inmates in Alabama’s jail system. “We miraculously obtained entry to an Alabama state jail, which by no means occurs. They don’t let journalists in they usually’re very strict about it,” revealed Jarecki. “We discovered ourselves there with the flexibility to shoot what was basically a non secular assembly within the courtyard. After we had been there we had been informed, ‘Don’t discuss to the lads. They’re very harmful. Don’t do that. Don’t go over there.’ As we began to speak to the lads, they had been very keen to speak to us and we had been very glad to speak to them.”
By specializing in the incarcerated males, Kaufman revealed that the themes had been inquisitive about providing an inside look into being in jail quite than utilizing or talking with analysts. “Significantly with Melvin Ray, we requested him what folks normally get unsuitable. He mentioned, ‘We’re normally talked about as information and statistics and victims of our circumstances, however we’re not offered as full human beings with full lives despite the fact that we’re incarcerated,’” mentioned Kaufman. “They usually will flip to legal professionals or politicians as the best authority on what’s taking place within the jail system, however we live it day by day and we are able to report straight.”
Because the campaigning for “The Alabama Answer” continues, each Jarecki and Kaufman are persevering with to take the movie round regional cities to assist deliver to mild the situations inside Alabama’s jail system, and to open a dialog about the way in which America’s jail techniques are operated each day.
“We’re educating folks on what it means to be incarcerated in America, as a result of what’s taking place inside Alabama’s prisons isn’t distinctive to Alabama. The secrecy, the authoritarian energy, the deal with punishment versus rehabilitation that exists in all prisons throughout America,” mentioned Kaufman. “The one distinction is that in Alabama, we had been in a position to really see inside, and I believe we’re beginning conversations in states throughout the nation about what we are literally investing 80 billion a yr into. We name this corrections, however are they really corrections? Perhaps we should always in our personal state be interrogating what’s really taking place behind these partitions.”
