Women In Prison

Date Published 1979 Length 0 pages Annotation This two-part film investigates the conditions of a Miami women’s detention center and attitudes of its inmates. The center has modern facilities without bars and a rehabilitation-oriented program. Abstract The journalist, Bill Moyers, moves throughout the detention center observing its activities and interviewing numerous inmates and custodial personnel. Moyers and his camera crew penetrate all areas of the institution, beginning with an observation of the admissions process, which includes humiliating body searches, proceeding to the mess hall, where Moyers shares lunch with the inmates, and finally taking a bus ride to a city landscaping site where the women are involved in a supervised wage-earning work experience. Moyers attends inmate group sessions, a religious revival meeting, a family visit between an institutionalized mother and her children, the jail infirmary, a basic education classroom, recreation areas such as the television room