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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
Jenn,
Allow me to premise my comments by saying that I have no background in photography, so I won’t attempt to address the technical characteristics of your piece. However, I am working on my PhD in clinical psychology and felt that you might welcome a different perspective.
At the suggestion of a friend, I viewed the series of images before reading your introduction. I think the piece is aptly named and the feeling of being trapped is clearly felt in most of the images. I have to say that I picked up on the jail context much more quickly than I picked up your attention to mental health. That said, I also recognize the difficulty of capturing poor mental health via visual media without coming across as unoriginal or insensitive. Kudos to you for avoiding both of those pitfalls.
My strongest critique is that, as a photographic civilian, I was distracted from the impact of some of the images by trying to figure out what was going on in the picture. I realize that abstract visual media can sometimes have a greater emotional impact than a corresponding concrete image. Given the resonant themes of isolation and loss of control, I imagine those images were an attempt to put the viewer in the inmates’ shoes. However, in this piece, the unfocused, abstract images felt like a jarring transition from the crispness of your other images and pulled me out of the piece instead of pulling my farther in.
Thank you for your careful attention to this topic. Best of luck on your journey.
DAVID Harvey. I might be repeating whats already been said or suggested but, if there is a problem with this comments page being distracted off topic from reviewing that particular body of work, by say, copyright issues or wether something is art or documentary, then could there be one other forum that deal with issues that are of hot topic for many of the photographers and editors who love this site so much, which could be highlighted say like a link page so anyone whose interested in an issue thats been brought up can go to that different page and discuss it there, leaving the essay page purely for reviewing photographs.
you got your work cut out for yourself Dave
Sorry. i think you’ve already addressed this DaAVID. So please forgive me missing it. No need to repeat yourself again.
Cheers.
Peter.
Hi Jenn,
A different world you have exposed here. A completely different world in this fanciful world. The story bears a social appeal to keep abreast from drugs and the future life of the addicted people are so sorrowful and harsh. The social rejection is stressful and the society must have supportive to accept after treatment.
Thanks Jenn for exposing such world in America.
Hope for your best luck in EPF.
Regards.
Partha Pal
Hi Jenn.
Yes. You’d think there’d have to be a better way. A much better way than allowing politicians to buy votes by being hard on crime to the detreatment of of society as a whole.
Really worthy story to uncover and show.
Haven’t gone through the thread comments on this, but without the text it’s not easy to figure out the story here.
DAH – To be clear, I wasn’t criticizing you for wanting to keep the comments directed towards the images at hand, the shame is that the dialogue keeps going off the deep end.
DAH:
“ok, how about this: from now on under the photographs presented, either single or essays, everyone gets one comment..one shot at it…to be directed ONLY at the work presented….all others deleted…that is moderating , but self moderating…
for those who want to chit chat, wrangle, tell us it is their birthday, they can do that in Dialogue…not moderated except for trolls with expletives etc. which is already a rule…..make sense?”
Actually suggested this several weeks ago — and not just to keep Jim from being beaten up — but to focus on the essay.
At that time, you didn’t believe that many of the comments were not germane to the essays and nixed the idea. Good to see that you understand what the current comments section has become — one with more comments on the commentors than on the essay itself.
Jenn expose ourselves to a world of nothingness.Birth is pain to them ,the pain their mothers felt during childbirth,they carry the pain throughout their whole life.Pictures also potray the pathos,the unbearable life of being a human.
The unbearable life of being a human?
Amazing work Jenn. Congratulations on being a finalist. Good luck!
Fantastic work! Moving, nauseating, frightening and thought provoking!
A while ago I was introduced to a media piece I was extremely impressed by, the use of video, audio and stills was impeccable and really set the standard to photojournalism media pieces. The piece was trapped.
It inspired me, I’m studying photojournalism [sorry excuse this self indulgent stuff for a moment] and as part of my course we had to complete a video assignment. Initially my thoughts were that video had no place in photojournalism and it should be kept to people with different skill sets. After watching trapped I felt the opposite. I was infused with ideas and endless possibilities (and I don’t mean being a copy cat and heading to my nearest mental hospital… shooting fish in a russian is the probable bandwagon I’d be more likely to jump on!)
But when viewing trapped on burn, I got nothing. context felt lost, the images didn’t have the same power and knowing it’s original medium, it felt short and completely unfinished. To put it simply, it had in no way the same impact as the original multimedia piece.
These criticisms however aren’t as much directed towards jenn’s work, but more the platform this grant is operating on.