Fuse’s new documentary, "It’s Criminal,” takes viewers behind the scenes of a women’s prison in New Hampshire as they collaborate with Dartmouth College for a unique program that teams up college students and inmates for a theatrical production. At times, the interactions can be raw and painful, but they’re always humanizing. Women from both sides of the program have a chance to learn from and collaborate with one another.
Director Signe Taylor followed a college class and a group of inmates as they learn to trust and confide in each other in order to write and produce a play at the end of the semester.
The film highlights stories from both groups of women, and in one poignant moment on the day of the performance, someone in the crowd later says that she couldn’t tell the difference between the women in college and the women in the prison. On this stage, they were treated as equals.
Taylor shared her experiences with working with college students and inmates.
How did you find out about this class?
I actually live in Norwich, Vt., which is right next door to Hanover, N.H. I was hired by Pati [Hernandez] and Ivy [Schweitzer, the two program instructors] to film the final performance, and that’s how I first learned about the class. Then I continued to film the final performances for several years until I suggested we finally do a film.
How long has this program been going on?
It’s been going on since 2006. They’ve taught the class many times. When we filmed “It’s Criminal,” It was the first time they worked with the Sullivan County House of Corrections, but it wasn’t the first time they taught it.
Since you’ve recorded so many performances over the years, did you notice any changes in the criminal justice system since you’ve been working with Pati and Ivy?
The opiate crisis has been happening since 2006. Women have been incarcerated for opiate addictions since then. What’s been interesting is to see the public and the media becoming aware of addiction, not as a criminal offense but as a disease. There’s been a positive change in the way people view addiction. There’s still a long way to go.
Also, more and more women are getting incarcerating. They’re the fastest growing population in prison are women. It’s specifically a lot of rural women who are going to jail.
And they’re so young in the film.
Yeah, two of the women we featured were 19, so they were younger than the Dartmouth students. It’s just heartbreaking.
What have some of the women said of their experiences?
Charlotte, the inmate with neck tattoos, has been going to screenings with me over the past year. So she got on a plane for the first time for our premiere at the L.A. Women’s Film Festival. That was the first time she left New England. It’s been an incredible experience for both of us. I watched her change from the first time I met her. She was crying from withdrawal symptoms. Over the course of the class, she changed, and I’ve watched her grow as a public speaker has been a huge change for Charlotte. Kim, who has a smaller presence in the film, has also traveled with us and it’s also had a huge impact on her life.
The impact on Dartmouth students is more of awareness. It doesn’t necessarily change their career path. There is one who now does advocacy work around incarceration, but for most of the other students, it was more of an eye-opening experience. They read about incarceration issues and they see the faces of the women. When they see news about the opiate crisis, it profoundly influences the way they see the world.
Are there efforts to copy this program at other institutions?
I think it would be wonderful if they did. One of the things Pati Hernandez is doing is starting to teach two-week sessions people who work with incarcerated people in how to run her program. She can work with either professors who want to work with an incarceration facility or she can work with social workers who want to do a similar program. She’s written a manual. The film is going to make a program like this more accessible on the ground.
There are more colleges that are open to experiential classes, which is the class that Pati and Ivy teaches. It’s where you go in, its hands-on, so it’s very different from a traditional college class. A fair number of those are now taking place in correctional facilities. That also raises some issues because you need a facility to be open to that program.
What inspired you to take on this project?
The thing I like about Pati and Ivy’s process is that they take unlike groups and bring them together. They bring people who think they don’t have anything in common together to find their commonalities and to become genuine friends. In a time when our country is splintering in so many different ways, I think that effort to create community and create bonds between people who are different, that is why I wanted to make this film.
I think that’s what we need to do in this country and in the world. Yeah, we might have different political opinions, come from different economic situations or have different skin color, but at a base level, we’re all the same. If we don’t recognize that, that’s where war and injustice happens. Seeing someone face-to-face can have positive change. We can start making policies that work for everybody.
