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Jenn Ackerman – Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons
Emerging Photographer Fund – FINALIST (number two of eleven)
The continuous withdrawal of mental health funding has turned jails and prisons across the U.S. into default mental health facilities. The system designed for security is now trapped with treating mental illness and the mentally ill are often trapped inside the system with nowhere else to go.
I left the prison everyday feeling the same way the warden and the doctors do – wanting to help these men that have nowhere else to go but feeling helpless. My intention was to produce a riveting body of work that made the viewer feel what I felt when I was inside the prison. There were days that I was extremely scared and others that I left thinking how much someone on the outside missed them. Some days, I had to remind myself that many of these men had done heinous things. There were also days when I was reminded that some of these men have faded into the system with no hope of getting out.
I saw them cry. I saw them hit themselves so hard in the head that they bled. I saw them throw their feces at the officers. I saw a world most people don’t even know exists in America.
Thus far, this project documents the Correctional Psychiatric Treatment Unit at the Kentucky State Reformatory. I chose this institution because it is regarded by many as one of the best psychiatric units in the country.
The project portrays the daily struggle inside the walls of the unit redesigned to treat mental illness and maintain the level of security required in a prison. The photos take viewers into an institution where the criminally insane are sometimes locked up in their cells for 23 hours a day with nothing to occupy their minds but their own demons.
I have an excitement for storytelling and believe it is a great honor and privilege to share the stories of people who otherwise might not be heard. I specialize in long-term, in-depth, documentary projects and believe strongly in its ability to increase social awareness. My goal is when an image can make you feel something you can no longer forget it exists.
While this is a topic that has been covered in foreign countries, we have yet to see an in-depth photo documentary on the inhumane treatment to the mentally ill in America. Thus, this story is one I am honored to tell given the access that I was granted. Throughout this past year, I balanced my time shooting stills and video. While I also believe the edited film will be powerful, I know that the still images cannot be ignored and will have a lasting impact.
See more photos and the short documentary film at http://www.jennackerman.com/trapped.
Photographs: Jenn Ackerman
Website: www.jennackerman.com
I’m a little confused by the artist statement. You say you choose this facility not because it was inhumane. Then later you say:
“While this is a topic that has been covered in foreign countries, we have yet to see an in-depth photo documentary on the inhumane treatment to the mentally ill in America.”
Your photos and the selection of the facility you chose seem to argue against your thesis.
JIM…
answering your question from the previous thread…our essays on BURN have always been up for four days or longer…..
while her wording could have been misinterpreted, i read it five times and see no contradiction…please re-read carefully…perhaps she could re-phrase to make it more clear, but her written intent is obvious..she chose this facility because of the superlative psychiatric care…not because it was inhumane….
since you are a news editor, and you know very well what Jen is trying to say, would you be kind enough to rewrite that sentence??? i am sure she would appreciate it….
cheers, david
I understand it is unlikely you are going to get photos of inhumane treatment, without going undercover. But you aren’t showing us an in-depth photo documentary of inhumane treatment. Just confusing.
David, they haven’t stood alone for four days. Just seems as a forum topic it’s exhausted in a couple of days. Just a comment.
@ jim powers, your points above are well stated and valid; i agree..
JIM…
due to the fact checking imperative and production time, there are two stories (this one included) which just cannot be rushed….i think we can publish our next one within 48 hours rather than the 72 we just had to take for this one…
Cool, David. Not really a criticism, just an observation.
OK, I read and re-read it a bunch of times and was typing a response agreeing with Jim and then I think I understood…..
This sentence is the one that is confusing….
“I choose this institution not because it is inhumane but rather because it is one of the best psychiatric units in the country.”
But… I think what she is saying that her main reason for selecting this institution is that it is one of the best units in the county, she didn’t just choose it because it is inhumane…. although I gather she feels it is….
That said, I loved it when I saw it some time ago and I still do. Very powerful work and images that can only be captured by investing A LOT of time.
I would like to know if the institution knows that she felt the treatment was inhumane. And how will she get access to more places if they know the intent of the story.
wow…another excellent body of work!
lovely, please fasten your seat belts for the next jim power inquisition, and now he’s got a tanto side-kick that says what he says is ‘well stated and valid’ it would have been so much better if tanto said ‘and i concur’
i’m just going to go out on a limb and give the author the benefit of the doubt: maybe ‘inhumane’ doesn’t mean that the workers were doing something ‘mean’ to the mentally ill. Maybe she just meant that correctional facilities were not the best place for mentally ill people to be helped or kept safe.
But that’s just me looking for the simple answer to the confusion, please do carry on with the witch hunt, maybe you can find some more hanger-oners.
I’m not sure the photographer, from the statement, completely understands the dynamic. The behaviors she described as troubling to her are behaviors common to the insane. I worked my way through college on the psychiatric unit of a hospital. Someone would come in, see their family member strapped to a gurney with leather restraints and shot up with Thorezine, and protest that we were not treating him right. Three hours earlier, in the emergency room, this guy the crap out of six orderlies and two policemen.
If the thesis is that criminally insane people are treated inhumanely in America, this essay fails to illustrate that thesis.
I feel one of my “ferret with Tourette’s on a triple espresso” moments coming on…..
I have to agree with Jim. I also cringe a bit at the use of the world inhumane treatment, which is right away indicting, and maybe here, should be qualified with the relevant infos pertaining to who, what, and how.
I am afraid again, we are going for 4 days, talk about the text more than the photographs, which for me, are within that style I found quite around these days, and interchangeable with any other “inside” stories for a while now. Not being negative, as any language, it can be the best to use.
From a humanitarian point of view, definitely a valid EPF finalist. Even though the claim that “most people have no idea…” is becoming a bit facile to place under just about every inside story under the sun.
Come on Pete. You take this essay to an editor and he says, “Cool photos, what are they of?” And the photographer says, “One of the best psychiatric units in the county…but these folks are being inhumanely treated in America.” Where would such an essay go?
Jim if you are saying that people who are mentally ill are best treated in a facility for criminals then i think you fail to completely understand the dynamic.
Hey Jim…:)
You? Have been a nurse to a mental hospital???
No wonder that “crazy” guy beat the hell out
of the doctors, nurses and the cops..
:))))
Laughing… I used to think I’m crazy..
but no, not anymore.. not me..
( maybe little unstable but definitely NOT crazy)
I don’t wanna end up on Jim’s chair all leather strapped
and thorazined up… That would make a crazy person simply INSANE…
Stanley Kubrick C.Orange style..
Eyes forced wide open watching NATGEO MOVIES all day and night long…
What a torture…:))))))
love u Jim
Herve, the significance of the text is that without it there would be no way of determining exactly what we are looking at. The text is confusing.
Herve, i agree the text doesn’t do the photographer any favors, but….
you know what, go for it, then.
I’ve hated artist statements like this since i discovered photography, if the mob decides to indict the photography because the writing was weak, maybe the message will be clear next year. Shred away.
If the best we are doing in this country is inhumanely treating the insane, then I would say there is everywhere to go with it. Look what happened when the Post broke the story on one of the best veteran’s hospitals in the country. Sometimes our “best” isn’t good enough.
Joe, where would YOU treat the criminally insane? They may be insane, but they are still criminals. Bad guys. Off the meds, harming and killing people.
The series is fine. Well done.
I feel sad for these ill people and personally I wouldnt have shown them photographed without their individual personal permisson. I dont know what permission you had as I cannot read it in the text. Just a point which is important (regarding ethical not law) to me and I wanted to mention.
Pete, we have only the assertion by the photographer that these people are being treated inhumanely. An assertion underneath photos that say nothing about inhumane treatment.
In my point of view I dont see the photographer trying to defend any certain thesis, I just see an open window for a drama thats its happening. I can see, feel and even smell the pain of this people regardless other ethic considerations. And for my the pictures work. Many others photographers in the same situacion would have let me indiference, but Jenn vision has shaken something inside me and I think thats the point.
Dietmar, I don’t think the insane can actually give consent.
No time to comment on the work at the moment, but a note:
There need not be contraction in the reading of the meaning of “I choose this institution not because it is inhumane but rather because it is one of the best psychiatric units in the country.” and the statement. It is grammatically the same as saying
“I choose the sorbet not because it was low calorie but rather because it was one of the best desserts available.”
The sorbet may indeed be low calorie, but that was not the reason for choosing it.
Erica, That is what I tried to say… you did it so much better.
Joe, Jenn wrote, not inhumane, but inhumane treatement, and then we are being accused of reading just that…Inhumane treatment.
It now happens for every essay. people use words they read exactly as they want, so it makes their point which conveniently is “clearly” that of the author, with a careful “maybe” affixed to it.
If the system is inhumane, it is not the treatment, for crissakes!
Jim, if insane cannot give consent then, me, personally, would never show these photos. Thats what I wanted to say.
Herve, but we are looking at an essay. Where is the evidence that the system is inhumane? Perhaps it is, perhaps not. But the essay does not address that issue. It’s a group of photos from inside a prison.
At first not convinced by the mix of “fuzzy”/blurry images and sharp ones, it sure now makes a lot of sense with the subject.
Strong serie. Thanks for sharing.
Dietmar, I agree personally. But I’m sure all of this was covered in the fact checking.
and JIM
about her photos “not showing inhumane treatment”..
let’s be clear, the artist states front and center that the institution is as trapped in taking on this roll to provide psychiatric care as are the mentally ill in the system. It is NOT a question of the workers in the institution committing human rights violations/ doing inhumane acts by choice. It is an examination of how the system, even in the most exemplary facility, fails to allow for “compassion, sympathy, or consideration” of the patients-inmates to a level the the photographer finds relevant.
And her photos are showing the inhumanity of the system.
I see this as more of a conceptual work than literal. I don’t need to see inmates being beaten into submission. There is a great feeling of desperation, hopelessness and despair. I think DAH can explain what I am trying to say better than I am doing here.
This is more than “a group of photos from inside a prison!”
Just checked the laws again. It is prohibited to take photos in mental institutions if there are patients in the photos.
And I agree with erica. It is not the people Jenn is pointing to as inhumane. It is the system. I meant to have that in the last post.
“It is prohibited to take photos in mental institutions if there are patients in the photos.”
Obviously it is not. Hence the photos.
HERVE
the statement allows that both the system is inhumane (failing to allow for “compassion, sympathy, or consideration” for the patient-inmates) and that the treatment (the techniques or actions customarily applied in a specified situation, aka 23 hour/day confinement) of the patient-inmates is also inhumane?
Just wondering who gave the photographer permission to shoot these photos.
Indicting? No, just talking, Joe.
Ok, here’s my take, IMO:
either the photographer is a writer too, and he (she) will be able to avoid common pitfalls to explanatory texts that end up explaining little, and confusing a lot. If not a writer, why not a very simple text, just a few lines, mostly where, what and when. On the place, not the photographer. On him/her, their stance is that of being a concerned photo-journalist/grapher/documentarist. In the case of a special technique employed, another paragraph can fit too.
Antyhing else that is not done as professionally as the pictures, will, it’ s proven with each essay now, will be a distraction and take away from the photography, which was the reason for entering the EPF or the BURN community.
Much of what I read, starting to tell us how we should read the pictures, almot how we should feel too, reads too much for me, IMO! as do-gooding on the part of the author (I shot that because…). IMO, not professional.
needs no ? at the end
All stick and no carrot. I would like to see a good non prison facility for comparison. I agree with Jim that some insane people need to be restrained, though a prison is probably not ideal the place needs to be secure.
Dietmar why is it ethically important to get permission to show photographs of people?
So… Jim ,
Did the photographer crossed the line?
Did she “cheat” the system?
Did she photographed in an illegal way,??
In a disrespectful manner towards the patients?
Accordind to the “Law”.. Did she exposed the patients
without asking permission ?
Panos, that’s the question.
Harry, I surely don’t want Charles Manson in a Sanitarium down the street.
failing to allow “compassion, sympathy, or consideration”
————————————–
that is not inhumane, Erica. That’s…. everyday life! :-)))
But seriously, that in itself is not inhumane treatment.
We all read differently, Peter, and it should not be , with a bit more carefulness, and succintness, with the text.
Do you think the Correctional Psychiatric Treatment Unit at the Kentucky State Reformatory will be pleased to learn these photos are being used to point out that such institutions are inhumane?
“We all read differently, Peter, and it should not be , with a bit more carefulness, and succintness, with the text.”
We all see differently too.
Maybe photographers would be better off if we didn’t explain our work with words. Let the photos speak for themselves. I only say this because it is hard enough with viewers giving their interpretations of the meaning in the images. Now we are having every word of our explanations parsed… when does it end.
rushing..but about the legality, there are so many issues/sides and particulars..in many states inmates lose rights granted to others, such as the power to vote, and quite possibly the option to deny consent when being photographed i am not familiar with the laws in kentucky.
many of you know I have been shooting in my own way a piece inspired by a 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning story about the adult home system in NYC..in that 2003 case there was no consent to shoot anywhere, not from the operators, not from the patient/clients..and it not only won a Pulitzer but has lead to an upcoming trial about the lack of supportive services in these privately run “psychiatric flophouses.” I have chosen to get consent from the people i am photographing, but not from the institution..but point is that critical stories, such as levy’s, are often bred from investigative journalism and do not expect any protection from the law when gaining permissions…
Jim..
If she crossed the line,
If the Kentucky madhouse is upset
and backed by the law..
then why don’t they go after the photog???
HERVE, that is the definition of inhumane treatment:
failing to allow compassion, sympathy, or consideration of a human or animal in the techniques or actions customarily applied to them in a specified situation
erica, if you do an investigative piece, and there might be illegality involved, then you take that risk to break a major story, not to show an essay on burn.