Survivors Guide to Prison

Writer-director Matthew Cooke’s angry look at the ineffective penitentiary system in America (a country that locks up more of its citizens than any other, viewers are told) uses punchy, raw imagery and MTV-style editing to make its case that an irrational fear of crime has made America a literal police state. Ill-monitored and poorly-educated police thuggishly incarcerate anyone they choose (with inmates often emerging as far worse lawbreakers than when they went in). The statistics sometimes strike one as hyperbolic, but the emotionalism is backed up with truly harrowing histories of innocent men and women who spent many years behind bars due to shoddy, prejudiced detective work (and bureau cover-ups of same), lying informants, and a for-profit prison model that makes money in immoral ways (slave labor, overcharging grossly for phone access, etc.). Craggy actor Danny Trejo—himself, famously, an ex-convict—narrates with passion, and he is joined (either onscreen or in voiceover) by Patricia Arquette, Susan Sarandon, Busta Rhymes, Deepak Chopra, Danny Glover, Cynthia Nixon, and others in a spot-the-star approach that unfortunately tends to distract from the film’s urgent issues. Still, this is a solid follow-up to Cooke’s How to Make Money Selling Drugs (VL-3/14). Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)