Two documentaries focus on crime in the United States
"Prison Town, USA" is a raw look at how Susanville, a small town in Northern California, population 17,500, is transformed when the locals agree to the construction of a prison nearby. Initially, most believed that the prison would bring a much needed economical boost to the community; local industries, such as the mills, had been in decline for years and the people of Susanville were struggling.
What this fine film examines are the lives of various residents as they adjust to the presence of the prison and the enormous footprint it has left on the character of the town. One resident comments that Susanville is now, in the main, made up of "cops and cons."
The documentary follows a dairy farmer as he hustles to maintain his milk contract with the prison something that he was initially promised but is now slipping away. And there's a recently released husband and father, who was incarcerated for stealing $40 worth of groceries to feed his family, was arrested and served 16 months at the prison. He must remain, with his wife and children, in Susanville until the end of his probation. His demoralizing search for work in a town that has few options, especially for a man just out of prison, is wrenching.
But then his precarious situation mirrors so many of the longtime residents who now must look to the prison for work. Two men, who are marginally employed in town, wait to go to the guard academy, resigned to careers of hyper-vigilance in a repressive and lethal environment.
In every respect, this film is illuminating, reminding the audience that America has undergone a boom in prison construction and we are incarcerating people at an unprecedented rate.
"The Trials of Darryl Hunt" is not only riveting, but deeply unsettling. Set, initially, in North Carolina in 1984, it focuses on the murder of a young white woman and the eventual arrest and the wrongful conviction of Darryl Hunt, a local black man. It's chilling to watch the justice system being distorted beyond recognition in order to keep one man in prison, despite the mounting evidence (to include DNA), which points to his innocence.
The film points to the inescapable fact that racism is so embedded in the social fabric of society that the idea that justice is blind is laughable. This powerful film makes use of footage gleaned from two decades of newscasts, interviews, and trial scenes. We see district attorneys, who seem to be sincere in their pursuit of justice for the victim, fail to disclose exculpatory evidence, denigrate the use of DNA when it doesn't fit their foregone conclusions, and dissemble as they argue against a new trial for Hunt. The question is, Why? The inescapable conclusion points to race. A white woman was brutally murdered by a black man. Once a suspect was settled upon, guilty or not, it was only a matter of crafting the evidence to support that conclusion.
Had it not been for the tenacity of Hunt's attorneys, over a period of 20 years, the conclusion to this compelling film would have been far different. This is documentary filmmaking at its best.
