More Transparency in ourPrison Systems

Guest: Heather Ann Thompson, PhD, Professor, History and Afro-American Studies, University of Michigan, Author, “Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971 and its Legacy” Over the last year, inmates in at least half a dozen prisons around the country have gone on strike or risen up in violent protest against the conditions they live in. There have likely been many more protests in prisons we haven’t heard about because very little information about what goes on inside actually gets out. If you call up the warden of your state prison and ask for a tour, you’ll probably be turned down. Even if you’re a reporter – and even if the prison is a government-run institution, as most are – you’re unlikely to get much in response to requests for information about how the prison operates. According to Heather Ann Thompson, this secrecy makes the system ripe for abuse.