SURVIVORS GUIDE TO PRISON: A Frightening Wake Up Call

“Today, you’re more likely to go to prison in the United States than anywhere else in the world. So in the unfortunate case it should happen to you – this is the Survivors Guide to Prison.”

With the flash of a music video and the somber narration of multiple legendary celebrities, Survivors Guide to Prison is a brutal wake up call to audiences, about the broken justice system in the United States.

Bruce and Reggie

The story focuses on two, separate, falsely accused, survivors of the American prison system.

Bruce Lisker, only 17 years old, came home on March 19, 1983 like any other day. Normally, his mother Dorka was on the porch to greet him. Not this day. Bruce found her brutally stabbed and beaten in their living room. He immediately called 911. Understandably distraught, he yelled at the paramedics to get her to the hospital as fast as they could, so a doctor could treat her. The police put him in a choke hold and threw him in the back of a car for “his own safety”, and instead of going to the hospital, they took him to the police station. During his two hour interrogation, his mother died. The detective assigned to his case was brand new, and under pressure to close the case as soon as possible, so he put all he had into finding Bruce guilty. It wasn’t until 26 years later that Bruce was finally freed.

In 1994, Reggie Cole was only 18 years old living, without a prior record, in South Central, Los Angeles. A man named Felipe Angeles was shot outside a brothel. One week later, Reggie and his friend, Obie Anthony, were arrested on eye witness testimony only. No physical evidence was found. Yet, they weren’t even told what they were being arrested for until they were already in jail. It took 16 years before Reggie found out that the pimp, whose testimony put him in jail in the first place, had been paid off by police to lie. By then, Reggie was back in court because he had killed another inmate just to survive.

Though both men were finally freed, the irreparable damage had been done and never apologized for.

It’s Much Worse Than We Think

As bad as you think it is in the U.S. criminal justice system, it’s way worse. The conditions in our prisons are inhuman. Even our closest allies know this. A recent Washington Post article featured a post about a recent British court ruling that stated sending its citizens into the U.S. prison system was a human rights violation. The U.S. has more people in prison today than anywhere else in the world. The prisoners here are also more likely to spend a majority of time in solitary confinement, a treatment that multiple human rights organizations are fighting to ban.

With the prevalence of “for profit” prisons in our country, large companies are able to procure labor at below slave wages. There is no minimum wage for work done by prisoners, so there is big money to be made by companies and the prisons who peddle human slavery. Not surprisingly, most of the prisoners are people of color. Ava DuVernay‘s 13th explored, in depth, the history of racism and slavery that our prison system is steeped in. Survivors Guide to Prison covers some of this, and also takes it one step further by naming some of the huge corporations that benefit from our “for profit” prisons.

For inmates, life inside is literally live or die. The healthcare for inmates is way below par. Many of those who weren’t criminals before must commit horrifying crimes just to survive. As a means of “rehabilitation”, the system fails in spades. Those who enter the system with mental illnesses are targeted and treated worse than animals. If you didn’t have a mental illness when you went in, you’ll come out with one — that is, if you ever get out. If you are poor, the odds of you getting the appropriate help needed to get out decreases dramatically.

The Ugly Truth

The state of the US prison system is frightening. With a plethora of cops pressured by the system to wrap up cases as quickly as possible; the targeting of people of color; the amount of companies paying big money to get their products made as cheaply as possible; the exorbitant sentences for charges as small as marijuana possession; the lack of healthcare and mental rehabilitation available to inmates; the power police wield with deadly weapons, coupled with a lack of education and training; the push for plea bargains; the outdated, ridiculous laws one can break, and be arrested for, without even realizing it; our “guilty until proven innocent” mentality and the lack of reasonable bail set on a sliding scale for income limits, sets the system against 99% of us. This is supposed to be a “justice” system.

Survivors Guide is a terrifying must see. With its vast array of legendary celebrities from film, TV and the music industry, it is less a documentary and more of an alarming SOS to America. Fast paced and loaded with useful information, there is absolutely no room for boredom here. There is an urgency behind this I’ve not seen in any documentary before, and with good reason. This isn’t a third world country, this is America. There is something seriously wrong when a country supposedly built upon the concept of freedom has the worst incarceration rate in the world.

There is also something wrong when our allies in other countries know this better than we do. It almost makes me too scared to walk out of my home, knowing that a cop could put me in jail for some made up reason, just because he doesn’t like me and get away with it. I both commend the filmmakers and fear for their safety, having exposed all of this. It even made me fearful for the accused, because they will, most likely, come out worse than when they went in.

Conclusion: Survivors Guide to Prison

Survivors Guide to Prison has changed the way I view the American justice system. There’s not enough room in any review to account for all of it’s essential information.  It is a testament to how the 1% rule our world at the expense of everyone else. This mentality MUST be changed.

We can no longer afford to live this way. With a yearly prison incarceration rate the size of New York City and Los Angeles combined, the time to challenge and rise against this status quo was yesterday.

How far would you be willing to go to stand up for justice?

Survivors Guide to Prison will be released in theaters in the U.S. on February 23, 2018.