The Prison Within (Katherin Hervey, 2020): USA

Review by Jeremy Ellison. Viewed at SBIFF 2020.

Troy Williams spent 18 years at San Quentin State Prison. Now, he’s the top editor at San Francisco Bay View.

Healing is the true goal of a prison sentence.

Eddie Herena left San Quentin after 13 years. He now works in San Francisco’s Mission District.

Phoeun You, at age 41, earned his associate’s degree while incarcerated.

Rehabilitation, not punishment, should be the purpose of prison.

Insight Prison Project: “Transforming the lives ​of those impacted ​by crime and incarceration.”

Sam W. Johnson Sr. served 22 years. He’s now San Quentin’s Executive Chairman of the Men’s Advisory Council.

Offenders of violent crimes are often times also victims of violent crimes.

Nate Collins performed an autobiographical play titled “They Come Free” while incarcerated.

Without intervention, trauma is recycled into hate.

Incarceration rates have declined by more than 10 percent over the past decade.

Therapy is a prison’s most powerful tool.

Hill Harper, actor and author of Letters to an Incarcerated Brother, narrates this powerful documentary.

In March 2019, San Quentin finally dismantled their execution chambers at the request of Governor Newsom.

Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.

—Fannie Lou Hamer, civil rights movement leader