After watching Jarecki’s 2012 documentary, The House I Live In, I consider it to be a huge eye opener. From a young age the stereotype of prisons is that “very bad” people are put away there. While that may be true, there are also some inmates in there that have made a few wrong turns down the wrong path and have been given a sentence of a ridiculous amount of years. It is amazing that how someone who murdered someone can get the same amount of years as some of the people in this film for selling drugs, or even more. I am not saying that I condone those actions of illegal selling but I do not believe that they should be treated the same as a murder or rapist. This documentary exemplifies exactly this. One police officer in the movie gave an excellent statement of how it is almost like the prisoners are “paying for our fear instead of paying for their crime.” And then, for those who are released, it is almost as if they are still paying for their crime due to the obstacles that lay ahead of them when trying to begin again. The difficulties of finding a job are extremely hard and therefore no job leads to no money which leads to no housing, etc… Therefore, this leads them to right back where they started and the cycle begins again.
There were also certain aspects of the film that I really appreciated. I loved the level of intimacy the director showed with each person he interviewed. Each really opened up and showed the audience their story. Listening and seeing them in their own world created a personal connection with the viewers. The variety of locations helped show that this is a problem across the country and not in one area.
I agree with you in that there seemed to be a great level of disconnect between the sentence and the crime for some of the inmates. I would not consider possession of drugs and killing someone to hold the same severity in terms of the crimes individually. However, I can’t help but consider the possible repercussions and potential of crimes associated with possession of use of drugs. I remember at least one of the inmates said that he had murdered another man while he was under the influence of drugs. There is a strong connection between the presence of drugs and levels of crimes such as murder.
I also agree with you about the inmates, upon release, still paying for the crime. The criminal justice system makes it incredibly difficult for ex-convicts to get back on the right path and make good decisions. They are denied so many rights and privileges that they might have forfeited by committing the crimes. But it comes as no surprise that recidivism rates are pretty high because there is NO support for members of the community upon leaving jail. How are they supposed to get a job when no one will hire them because they have a conviction on their record.