Search Results for "solitary confinement"

In the disciplinary wing, a prison within a prison, inmates die under unexplained circumstances. Their families want to know the truth and file lawsuits against the prison administration. One of them is Mahamadou, whose brother Amara died less than 30 minutes after being admitted to the isolation cell. The documentary tells the story of how he, and other bereaved relatives, such as Sambaly's sister, and Sacha's parents, fight for answers. Their story, along with previously unpublished testimonies from guards and former inmates, sheds light on one of the darkest places in the French Republic.

Examine the science of solitary confinement and find out what it means to be absolutely alone. What really happens to people in isolation? Is there a difference in the effects of solitude by chance, by choice, or, as in the case in some prisons, by force? Enter Colorado State Penitentiary to witness prisoners on the edge and the guards who watch over them. Then, look at experiments on whether isolation dramatically alters behaviour and ongoing new research on how solitary could actually cause long-term mental problems like paranoia, disorientation and delirium.

The prison population of the United States is enormous with over two million individuals currently incarcerated nationwide. Nearly 80,000 of those are held in solitary confinement. They have no human contact and every element of their environment is controlled. Meals come through a slot in the solid steel door, as does all communication with prison staff. They might be allowed to shower once a week. They might not see the outdoors for months or years on end. They spend 22-24 hours a day in their cell with little to no human contact for days or even decades. The sensory deprivation they endure causes severe psychological damage. These people are invisible to us—and eventually to themselves. The UN has condemned solitary confinement. But it continues. (This is a virtual reality project featured as an installation for the first time. It is also a 2016 TFI New Media Fund grantee.)

Contestants on a reality TV show must stay in solitary confinement to win a $1 million prize.

Women in prison/pink film directed by Wataru Oku.

The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.

Army Captain Edward Hall returns to the U.S. after two years in a prison camp in the Korean War. In the camp, he was brainwashed and helped the Chinese convince the other prisoners that they were fighting an unjust war. When he comes back he is charged for collaboration with the enemy. Where does loyalty end in a prison camp, when the camp is a living hell?

Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, where he forges a strong friendship with Louis Dega, a counterfeiter who needs his protection.

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

A young man who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson.

The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement.

After killing a prison guard, convict Robert Stroud faces life imprisonment in solitary confinement. Driven nearly mad by loneliness and despair, Stroud's life gains new meaning when he happens upon a helpless baby sparrow in the exercise yard and nurses it back to health. Despite having only a third grade education, Stroud goes on to become a renowned ornithologist and achieves a greater sense of freedom and purpose behind bars than most people find in the outside world.

A man in solitary confinement for seven years comes out into a world of self-isolation.

Despite vocal objections from Warden Blakely, prison psychologist Diana Purlow journeys deep inside the mind of serial killer Jesse Mowat in a desperate attempt to reveal the source of his psychotic tendencies.

Members of a teenage gang are sent to the State Reformatory, presided over by the callous Thompson. Soon Patsy Gargan, a former gangster appointed Deputy Commissioner, arrives and takes over the administration to run the place on radical principles. Thompson needs a quick way to discredit him.

A solitary dish washing robot living out his life in the back room of a restaurant is enlightened to the world that exists beyond his four walls, with the help of a small friend he breaks free of confinement to pursue his dream of exploration.

There are 100,000 US citizens in solitary confinement across the country, a staggering number prompting comment from both President Obama and the Pope. Situated in rural Virginia, 300 miles from any urban center, Red Onion State Prison is one of over 40 supermax prisons across the US built to hold prisoners in eight-by-ten-foot cells for 23 hours a day. Filmed over the course of one year, this eye-opening film braids stark prison imagery, stories from correction officers, and intimate reflections from the men who are locked up in isolation. The inmates share the paths that led them to prison and their daily struggles to maintain their sanity.

In 2011, Maine State Prison launched a pioneering reform program to scale back its use of solitary confinement. Bafta and Emmy-winning film-maker Dan Edge and his co-director Lauren Mucciolo were given unprecedented access to the solitary unit - and filmed there for more than three years. The result is an extraordinary and harrowing portrait of life in solitary - and a unique document of a radical and risky experiment to reform a prison. The US is the world leader in solitary confinement. More than 80,000 American prisoners live in isolation, some have been there for years, even decades. Solitary is proven to cause mental illness, it is expensive, and it is condemned by many as torture. And yet for decades, it has been one of the central planks of the American criminal justice system.

For decades, the United States has been fixated on incarceration, building prisons and locking up more and more people. But at what cost, and has it really made a difference? FRONTLINE goes to the epicenter of the raging debate about incarceration in America, focusing on the controversial practice of solitary confinement and on new efforts to reduce the prison population, as officials are rethinking what to do with criminals.

Anika Price's LCAD Experimental Animation Senior thesis film.

A countdown begins as dark sands of an hourglass fall. Two men in separate, dimly lit rooms are haunted by disturbing visions. A mysterious creature will soon join them.

Ashley Smith was a troubled 19-year-old when she choked herself to death at Ontario's Grand Valley Institution for Women. Her death made national headlines and led to a scathing report by Canada’s federal prison ombudsman. Incarceration for Ashley began at a youth detention centre in New Brunswick. Her crime: she had tossed crabapples at a mailman. Her one-month sentence stretched to almost four years, served in five provinces. With the prison videotapes and exclusive access to Smith’s parents, along with a fellow inmate, this documentary exposes a system that fails the many Ashley Smiths still incarcerated in Canadian institutions.