| Genres: | Documentary |
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"The Big House" explores some of America's toughest prisons from the inside out.
State Prison, Parchman Mississippi... A land without visible boundries... Originally a slave plantaion ruled by the whip... Today its most important crop is neither food or cotton... but prisoners. 75 percent are African-American. During its hundred-thirty year history, Parchman has embodied the traditions and folk wisdom of the American south in a way no other prison ever has. Its legacy includes brutal executions in the State's gas chamber and conjugal visits for the best behaved convicts. A large number of "lifers" have prepared themselves to die here. A few hold out hope of early release.
The State Penitentiary in Auburn, New York is the centerpiece of a city and a monument to one of America's first attempts at criminal rehabilitation. Its founders were liberal prison reformers who believed their task could be accomplished through penitence, hard work, and silence. The "Auburn System" was adopted by most U.S. prisons in the early 1900s. Now, all that remains of that system is hard work--and hard time--for the most violent offenders in New York State.
Called the "Castle on the Cumberland", its inspiring medieval presence is a focal point on the landscape. But this castle is really Kentucky's maximum-security prison, reinforced with modern cellblocks and electronic surveillance to keep watch on the state's most dangerous prisoners. We follow an officer on his shift and step inside the high-security block that houses the "worst of the worst", and tour death row that's electric chair holds a gruesome national record--seven executions in a single day!
Opened in 1824, the original plan for Maine State Prison called for prisoners to remain in solitary confinement and darkness for the duration of their sentences.
Colorado's first state prison in Canon City traces its roots to the days of frontier justice, incarcerating prisoners ranging from cannibal Alfred Packer to a heavyweight boxing contender.
The largest prison system in the free world, its 20,000 male and female inmates reflect the crimes and racial tensions of Los Angeles County. The challenge is staggering--feed 75,000 meals a day and keep an estimated 16,000 gang members from killing each other! Welcome to LA County Jail with an inmate roster that reads like a Who's Who of national crime stories--Bugsy Siegel, Mickey Cohen, Robert Mitchum, Robert Blake, Charles Manson...all passed through its standing-room-only holding tanks!
