In Their Corner

Johnnie Woods on Mon, 23rd Mar 2009 9:20 am
This is a great project of yours. The video is priceless. I word in the Kentucky Division of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in Frankfort, and refer people to your website to see the video.

I am also working on a degree at UK College of Public Health and am interested in your work, as it is similar to my chosen capstone topic on Kentucky’s peer specialists.

Catherine on Mon, 23rd Mar 2009 5:02 pm
This is a very powerful, and deeply saddening film. I think it’s a very important film too - in making people aware of the plight of the mentally ill in U.S prisons - nearly half a million of them - and in calling for reform. The prison services are completely inadequate and the general set-up totally, totally inappropriate for the treatment and handling of severe mental health conditions. Long-term sensory deprivation and isolation can be deemed ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment for any human being, but for the mentally ill it is sickening. Mentally ill people are suffering enough stress and confusion as it is, and any person in their right mind will know that by confining such inmates to 23 hr. lockdown, in a 9×4 less cell not only massively aggravates their condition and their symptoms, but also causes unbearable suffering.
I am a Psychology degree student in London, in my 30’s, and have been interested in the U.S prison system for quite a few years now. I have visited 4 prisons across the US and come across the new wave of ’super-max’ prisons. They are barbaric, inhumane, and quite, quite unbelievable. Most worrying is the severe mental disturbance that is caused by being subject to these conditions, often below ground, devoid of natural light, all human contact, all stimulation and sensation. So not only is the prison system mis-handling millions of mentally ill people, it is also causing mental illness to thousands more. Surely this is a crime.
I hope to do my final year research project on this issue.
All credit goes to the inmate-watchers showing incredible sensitivity, compassion and awareness to those less fortunate than themselves.
Thank you for the film.

Jenn Ackerman. Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons « Prison Photography on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 5:43 am
[...] the Trapped feature film, Jenn breaks the project into a series of presentations. Firstly, the In Their Corner short about the inmate watch. Secondly, In Their Minds a series of seven film shorts allowing [...]

Mithotyn on Wed, 26th Aug 2009 10:04 pm
I’ve been to five mental hospitals in my life and don’t see anything here that’s worse than any of them. Modern mental hospitals are worse than anything you’ve seen in “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest”. At a cost of over a thousand dollars per pay per patient to tax payers they merely hold you there for an indefinite period of time while drugging you and making you attend pointless groups. That’s it. Period. Click my name for my blog.

joseph mitchell on Mon, 12th Oct 2009 4:05 pm
How do we train policing and public safey officers to recognize their fellow citizens who are having problems? Can we get officers of the court to identify these citizens BEFORE sentencing? The cost of incarceration in a jail/prison or in a mental hospital may be reduced IF lasw enforcement and judges ask the right questions about a defendant early in ‘the process.’
Common sense. Already stated.

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