"Slavery: The Prison Industrial Complex"

Over Easter break, I visited the Nashville art museum. There was a photography exhibit that caught my eye. The exhibit displayed photographs by Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick, and was titled Slavery: The Prison Industrial Complex. The exhibit showed pictures of the Louisiana State Penitentiary taken over the last thirty years. The Louisiana State Penitentiary sits on a former plantation, and is often referred to as Angola since many of the slaves that once worked at that plantation came from there. A staggering 75% of the inmates at Angola are African American. The prison continues to grow cash crops today.

The photos in the exhibit show the prisoners working the crops in the fields, the hot Louisiana sun beating down on them. It shows armed white prison guards towering over the predominantly black inmates. It shows black prisoners cramped in a dirty jail cell. If the viewer did not know the context of the images of the inmates working in the fields, he or she might assume that the images are portraying slavery, pre-civil war. This is exactly the photographers’ point. Calhoun and McCormick’s goal is to emphasize their opinion that this prison is a manifestation of modern-day slavery. Inmates have little to no legal rights, and are being unjustly taken advantage of. The 13^th amendment, passed in 1865, states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…”. Although the 13^th amendment outlaws slavery, it still allows for a prisoner to be subject to involuntary servitude, or in other words, slavery.

As I viewed the exhibit, I was shocked and alarmed at the pictures. Even after I left, I could not shake the disturbing images out of my mind. The photographers effectively portrayed the brokenness of the prison system. The pictures illustrated the humanity of the inmates. Looking at the images, any viewer could not help but feel sympathy for the inmates, who are being treated as less than human. The prison system in our country is a serious problem.

The exhibit, as mentioned earlier, also points how far more black people are imprisoned than white people. According to the United States Census in 2010, 2,306 per 100,000 blacks were incarcerated, while only 450 per 100,000 whites were incarcerated. ^[1] This means that there are five times as many black prisoners as white prisoners in our country. These statistics are alarming, especially considering that black citizens make up only 13% of the United States population, while white citizens make up 64% of the United States population. ^[1] This reflects the deep-rooted problem of racism in our country. The incarceration crisis has no simple solution, but something must be done. The high rate of black people compared to the low rate of white people being imprisoned must stop, and the way in which prisoners are treated must improve.

Below are two images from the exhibit. 

Sakala, Leah. “Breaking Down Mass Incarceration in the 2010 Census.” Breaking Down Mass Incarceration in the 2010 Census | Prison Policy Initiative, Prison Policy Initiative, 28 May 2014, www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html.