Can you imagine teaching Shakespeare to men in solitary confinement?  And by that I mean men who are actually locked in 23 out of 24 hours a day behind metal doors with only a slit to see through into the hallway?  And along with that, try picturing a woman who sits in that hallway, coaching those men as they speak Shakespeare's lines aloud talking to other men who they cannot see?

This is the mission of Laura Bates, an amazing woman who is an associate professor at Indiana University and in 2003 began teaching in Wabash Correctional in Indiana.  In an article for an Indiana State U publication, Bates says "We are the only Shakespeare program in the segregated unit in solitary confinement anywhere in the world….Never before attempted….never duplicated either."

The process according to the article:  "Two officers escort each man into an individual cell in a separate unit inside segregated housing. Bates, as shown above,  sits in the small hallway between eight individual cells with the imprisoned men sitting behind metal doors peering, talking and listening through open rectangular cuff ports."

I met Laura Bates when we presented together along with others who had used Shakespeare behind bars and I was knocked out by her work.  She has a book coming out in April:  Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary With the Bard , so hopefully we'll all be able to read more about her and understand this work.  She focuses on one particular prisoner and hence the title.  Larry felt Shakespeare saved his life.

The men Laura encounters have committed violent offenses behind bars, and thus they are sent to solitary; some have committed horrible crimes.  But no prisoner is only their crime.  Laura's work points up the idea that to label people us un-redeemable belies their humanity.  They are not  "the worst of the worst" as often referred to in article after article.  They are men who are also human beings indebted to the chance to turn their pain, loss, rage and deprivation into words.  Bravo Laura.

If you haven't heard of Amie Dowling, once you see her short film, Well Contested Sites, you won't forget her.  Why?  She creates dance pieces with formerly imprisoned men and women that touch on all their pain, hopes and dreams, and in addition, raises awareness about issues of incarceration.  I have posted the link for her piece here. 

Amie's dance background is thoroughly embedded with social justice. She's worked in Thailand with NGO's, assisting women leaving the sex trade industry and developed and toured theatre/dance pieces that addressed what she felt were the underlying issues of prostitution:  "class, race, gender inequity, and geographic isolation."

It was her nephew's involvement with gang activity and his subsequent incarceration that drew Amie to found the Performance Project, and from 2001-2008 she created amazing theatre/dance pieces on the East coast with prisoners, presented behind bars to an audience including prisoners and their families. 

Now she's in California.  Here's Amie working with Reggie from her current piece which follows a group of male prisoners as they make their way through the transition from incarceration to life on the outside.  This 13 minute film was actually created at Alcatraz and several of the cast members were formerly behind bars.  Amie says about the piece's title that it  "stems from the idea that a prisoner’s body is a contested site, its presence or absence, its power and its vulnerability are all intensely realized in jails and prisons – institutions that emphasize control, segregation, solitude and physical containment."

I first heard of Amie's work through Jonathan Shailor's book about theatre and dance practitioners in prison, Performing New Lives and in the video Jonathan made to give people a flavor of the book, there is the most stunning picture of male dancers.  I might have thought Balanchine.  I might have thought a New York stage.  The bodies are arched and angled and look trained and dynamic.  The feeling is of reaching for freedom and it's apparent in every sinewy muscle.  Amie's website is www.amiedowling.com.  And her facebook page about the project is here.

In Shakespeare Behind Bars, I wrote that art has the power to show us and those who dwell inside that prisoners are not "damaged goods." Through their transcendence into a world without words, where images speak above all else, they bypass –for if only a shining moment–those they've hurt, the bars that keep them confined and through art, they recognize that they can soar again.

A couple of years ago I was asked to go outside to a town outside Philly in Pennsylvania, to introduce an amazing film that was premiering, called Concrete, Steel and Paint.  The film took us into the story of the most unusual mural making I had ever heard about– a collaboration in prison between victims of crime and criminals.  Imagine murderers and those who'd lost a child or husband to murder making murals together?  No, I couldn't either.  I knew a lot about restorative justice — the idea of in some way making amends to those you've hurt, be it with group talk, facilitated conversation, service or money.  But I wouldn't have imagined someone who killed a child and someone who lost her son painting together.  That was this story.  And Jane Golden began this marvelous mural program that has expanded and multiplied.  Read more about it and how it fulfills the idea of restorative justice at the website, here. 

The film was, of course, about healing and I was transfixed watching it, questioning the amazing collision of punishment, remorse and forgiveness. As the filmmakers, Cindy Burstein and Tony Huriza, write on their website about the process where prisoners come together, talk and work with those who have experienced crime,"Finding consensus is not easy – but as the participants move through the creative process, mistrust gives way to surprising moments of human contact and common purpose."

Because of working behind bars directing plays in prison, I have long known the healing power of art but to see the healing power of ART is incredibly exciting.  Here's a mural created by prisoners:

  And here's one created by victims of crime: 

Can you imagine these on nearby buildings?  If you want to see a glorious version, you'll have to go to Philly but I am happy with this take: http://explorer.muralarts.org/#/mural/healing_walls.

Welcome to the Fun House…

So hello to my blog, "Justice with Jean" where I intend to talk about all things prison, parole and probation.  And believe it or not, there's a lot to laugh at regarding our criminal justice system.  I mean if you're not crying or screaming your lungs out at the amount of, let's see, shall I say "stupidity?" or maybe "irrationality" or in a pinch, "the ultimately impossible to explain?"

So, for a moment, come with me to a medium security prison.  Imagine you want to visit a loved one.  Now seriously, make it someone you like a lot or else this won't work.  You don't mind filling out a form, putting things in a locker like keys and money.  You understand policy.  Hey, you know why you have to take your shoes off and let them look in your mouth and behind your ears and hey, it's no biggie when your bra sets the machine off and you have to go into what looks like a closet to be wanded. No biggie.  It's prison.

You have no idea when you enter the not so receptive "reception area" that you can buy a chit, a thingie that functions like a debit card, and after you enter the Visiting Room, you'll be able to buy him a sandwich and yourself a diet coke to wash down the fury you are about to feel. 

So, eventually you're in this big warehousey room.  Prisoners are sitting in those plastic chairs that kind of look like saucer cups from a fun house ride.  The chairs are spaced with about a foot of white in between each one and they're all attached.  So there are six lines of these chairs and they are NOT civil.  Like you have to keep your back pressed against the chair, your hands in your lap and if there are three of you, then you are sitting in a little line, actually all facing straight ahead with correction officers coming around and telling you not to lean forward.  

They are not like this:  which would not be so bad since you are at least facing the person or people who are visiting you (overlooking the fact that the prisoner is the one marked in scarlet letter tones.)

And they are not like this:  which also has some potential for not killing your neck and actually hearing a conversation. No, visiting is more like what Jim Ridgeway describes in his fabulous article about medical parole in Mother Jones: "Prisoners and visitors may sit next to, but not opposite, one another. They must keep their feet flat on the floor at all times and their backs against the chair backs. Guards posted at stations at either end of the room roam about." 

And surprise, they don't just roam about.  They tell you not to sit forward.  They tell you not to touch.  They remind you over a loud speaker too.  The sound in a visiting room is deafening with acoustics like some sort of locker room from hell. So forget hearing.

Who visits in a line, huh?  Who?  Apparently Massachusetts.  And Oregon:  Although in Oregon, at least prisoners can sit close enough to talk across the aisle.  Here, we strap in, sit back and forget having a real conversation.