You might want to check out this film if you’re in the area, a film reviewed here by The New York Times:  “The Central Park Five revisits two New York nightmares. The first and most famous was the rape and beating of a 28-year-old white woman who, very early on April 20, 1989, was found in Central Park bound, gagged, nearly naked and nearly dead, her head crushed and shirt soaked in her blood. For years she was known only as the Central Park jogger, and her assailants were widely thought to be the five black and Latino teenagers, 14 to 16, who were arrested in the attack. The directors Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns argue that the convictions, and the years the defendants served for the crime they were later absolved of, were a second, racially motivated crime.”

I have to say I love Ken Burns but had a very mixed reaction to the book by Sarah Burns:  The Central Park Five:  A Chronicle of a City Wilding.  For me, it was well researched but she didn’t retell the story in a way that hold my interest.  It’s a tragic story, an infuriating story but the human face just didn’t come through for me.

I am betting a discussion after the film with Burns, Ogletree and two of the actual accused will certainly put a face to the story.  Check your local listings to see when this film might hit your area.

Recently there’s been a more visible push to bring back federal funding for college classes in prison. Here’s why you would sleep better if that happened.  Check out my new blog and click on:    

You also might be interested in this editorial in the Seattle Times which just came out today about bringing back higher education funding for prisoners.                     

A new campaign to get kids to pull up their pants is creating quite a stir in Boston and who knows, may be coming your way.  My blog at shows you why.

“Can’t We Do Better on Suicide Prevention in Prison?”  Suicides have gone down since “safety smocks” came to prison, but there might be other ways to reduce self-harm in Segregation Units.Check out my new post on

If you paid attention to the Boston Globe‘s recent report of our real life version of the hit HBO show, The Wire, you’d think drugs and gangs were some kind of implicit connection. You’d think the problem begins and ends with low level drug dealers who get into the flashy life style. That’s why I was so enlightened when I watched Eugene Jablecki’s powerful documentary The House I Live In which reveals the truth about the Drug War, its historical roots and how it plays out in the present.

First and foremost, the film puts a human face on the brutality of drug laws as they currently stand in the U. S. It emphasizes what

Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow:  Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness), David Simon (The Wire), and others write and speak about when they discuss drug policy in the U.S. From the film’s website which points out “a vast machine that feeds largely on America’s poor, and especially on minority communities. Beyond simple misguided policy, The House I Live In examines how political and economic corruption have fueled the war for forty years, despite persistent evidence of its moral, economic, and practical failures.”

Organizations like Families Against Mandatory Minimum have been working for years to end policies that the film highlights. When poverty leads to no jobs and people of color try to survive by selling drugs, where do we start to make change?  Many politicians never get past the tip of this iceberg because the depth of the problem is not acknowledged.  The film explores how these realities sell votes in this country where “tough on crime” is a mantra chanted by the Democrats as well as the Republicans. It is a film that lawmakers need to see so they stop mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.

The film also shows something that opened my eyes: overdoing drugs such as cocaine and even heroin was once considered a public health problem rather than a need for criminal prosecution.

On a personal note, Eugene Jarecki, the filmmaker and producer– supported in his producing efforts by such powerhouses as Danny Glover, John Legend and Brad Pitt –frames the film with a black housekeeper who worked for his family, Nanny Jeter.  The difference between his upbringing and survival chances and her son’s are heartbreaking.  For those of us who know what it is to come from privilege, the difference in these chances in life only emphasize more clearly the devastation of Drug War policies.  Nanny was offered double her salary to follow Jarecki’s family from Connecticut to New York.  Desperate for money, she did, and her son paid the price.  But it was our society that created much of the poverty and drug traps her son stepped into.

At a recent showing at Shiloh Church in Washington D.C., a panel speaker said after the film that Rosa Parks was the icon of the Civil Rights movement and Nanny Jeter, the icon of the Drug War.  U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters said the film showing was the most important event happening last weekend in Washington D.C. besides the inauguration of President Obama  This discussion is still available here.

The film can be screened at home streaming from your computer or you can catch a showing in a city near you.  Either way, options are shown at the film’s website.  It’s probably one of the most important documentary experiences I’ve had.  Watch it.