{"id":10369,"date":"2016-04-30T11:07:06","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T15:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=10369"},"modified":"2016-04-30T11:14:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-30T15:14:33","slug":"prison-visits-under-threat-hamilton-behind-bars-art-the-nypd-three-links-from-a-criminal-justice-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2016\/04\/prison-visits-under-threat-hamilton-behind-bars-art-the-nypd-three-links-from-a-criminal-justice-system.html","title":{"rendered":"Prison Visits Under Threat, “Hamilton” Behind Bars, Art & the NYPD: Three Links from a Criminal Justice System"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cPrison visits helped prepare me for life after release. Why are they under threat?\u201d<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Leaving prison was one of the hardest times in my life. Re-entry is like falling out of a plane: it\u2019s hard to land on your feet. Before I even left, six-plus years at York Correctional Institution developed in me an inability to function in a non-carceral environment. But I owe it to prison visiting rooms \u2013 which allowed some contact with the outside world \u2013 that my re-entry wasn\u2019t as bad as it could have been.<\/p>\n

During visits, my mother would tell me, \u201cLower your voice,\u201d when I didn\u2019t think it was elevated. She would observe, \u201cYou\u2019re so angry,\u201d when I wasn\u2019t. She would ask, \u201cCan I finish?\u201d when I trampled her sentences. Those visits helped me to relearn the social graces that were lost while inside.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it worries me that several jails around the country have eliminated, or plan to eliminate and severely restrict, in-person visits. They want to use video visitation as a substitute. But virtual reality has never supplanted reality anywhere \u2013 so why do we expect it to in prison?<\/p>\n

Of all the jails that have already implemented video visitation, 74%<\/a> of them have closed their visiting centers permanently, according to research conducted by the Prison Policy Initiative. Too often, when video visitation becomes an option, real-life visitations cease to be.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

more<\/a> (and I missed #falladafriday but the main point of this article is also the main point of Hans Fallada\u2019s flawed but powerful novel Once a Jailbird<\/em>)<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018He struggled and kept his guard up\u2019: Hamilton in the Big House\u201d<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\u2026I often wish I could take the guys to the theatre. You may be able to imagine that a fair number of these men had no access to the arts as children. (That\u2019s a separate post.) We make do with production photos and the occasional \u201cadapted for television.\u201d Until the cast of Hamilton <\/em><\/strong>beautifully and powerfully performed their opening number from the stage of the Richard Rodgers Theatre for the Grammy ceremony, and then performed at the White House. Until Lin-Manuel Miranda free-styled in the Rose Garden with President Obama. Which I promptly burned onto a DVD and waited for clearance to bring into the facility.<\/p>\n

Tonight we watched Lin-Manuel perform a piece from his \u2018concept album\u2019 at the 2009 White House Poetry Jam<\/a>, and we talked about how that audience received his work. We talked about what happens when people laugh and you\u2019re serious, about the decision to stand one\u2019s ground and follow one\u2019s purpose, which is a hot topic in our rehearsal room as we get closer to sharing our months of work with the population of the prison. \u201cHe gets more confident as he goes.\u201d Some of the men are worried that the population won\u2019t understand Shakespeare; some are worried that they will laugh at the serious parts. Tonight, one of the elders in our circle says, \u201cWe have to tell the story.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

more<\/a> (follow the author on Twitter<\/a>)\u2013wait AND I just read her truly powerful older piece about staging Our Town<\/em> in the house of the dead<\/a>. Dramaturgy + theology, your must-read link from this post.<\/p>\n

\u201cOff the Beat and Into a Museum: Art Helps Police Officers Learn to Look\u201d<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\n

\u2026When forced to deconstruct paintings in group settings, people from different professions tend to respond differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law enforcement community is much more forthcoming,\u201d Ms. Herman said. \u201cCops will outtalk you every time. Doctors and medical students are much more inhibited. They don\u2019t want to be wrong, and they never want to show that they are ignorant about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

more<\/a>\u2013I\u2019m pro-this, but lol at \u201cI\u2019d collar the guy in pink.\u201d Reminds me of that (truncated) Henry Adams quote, \u201cIn no well-regulated community, under a proper system of police, could the Virgin feel at home<\/span>[.]\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cPrison visits helped prepare me for life after release. Why are they under threat?\u201d: Leaving prison was one of the hardest times in my life. Re-entry is like falling out of a plane: it\u2019s hard to land on your feet. Before I even left, six-plus years at York Correctional Institution developed in me an inability […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1273,106,107],"class_list":["post-10369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","tag-lin-manuel-miranda","tag-no-more-cotton-pickin-prisons","tag-prayers-to-st-joseph-cafasso"],"yoast_head":"\nPrison Visits Under Threat, "Hamilton" Behind Bars, Art & the NYPD: Three Links from a Criminal Justice System<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""Prison visits helped prepare me for life after release. 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