War on Drugs: The Prison Industrial Complex
Genres
Overview
The war on drugs has been going on for more than three decades. Today, nearly 500,000 Americans are imprisoned on drug charges. In 1980 the number was 50,000. Last year $40 billion in taxpayer dollars were spent in fighting the war on drugs. As a result of the incarceration obsession, the United States operates the largest prison system on the planet. Today, 89 percent of police departments have paramilitary units, and 46 percent have been trained by active duty armed forces. The most common use of paramilitary units is serving drug-related search warrants, which usually involve no-knock entries into private homes.
Details
Budget
$0
Revenue
$0
Runtime
93 min
Release Date
1999-10-07
Status
Released
Original Language
English
Vote Count
2
Vote Average
5.2
0.0
Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison
Pete and Toshi Seeger, their son Daniel, and folklorist Bruce Jackson visited a Texas prison in Huntsville in March of 1966 and produced this rare document of of work songs by inmates of the Ellis Unit. Worksongs helped African American prisoners survive the grueling work demanded of them. With mechanization and integration, worksongs like these died out shortly after this film was made.
1966-03-01 | en
6.8
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
A cheap, powerful drug emerges during a recession, igniting a moral panic fueled by racism. Explore the complex history of crack in the 1980s.
2021-01-11 | en
0.0
Blue Room
Incarcerated participants in a mental health experiment watch videos of sunset-soaked beaches, wildflowers and forests on loop, prompting them to reflect on isolation and wilderness. Equal parts meditation and provocation, Blue Room identifies the damage done by withholding access to the outdoors and how we are all prisoners when the essential human need for communion with nature is denied.
2022-05-01 | en
0.0
Visions of Abolition: From Critical Resistance to a New Way of Life
Weaving together the voices of women entangled in the criminal justice system, along with leading scholars on prison abolition, this film provides a critical analysis of the disfunctionality and violence of the prison system.
2011-01-03 | en
6.7
The Condemned
With unprecedented access, this documentary looks into the hidden world of one of Russia's most impenetrable and remote institutions - a maximum security prison exclusively for murderers. Deep inside the land of the gulags, this is the end of the line for some of Russia's most dangerous criminals - 260 men who have collectively killed nearly 800 people. The film delves deep into the mind and soul of some of these prisoners. In brutally frank and uncensored interviews the inmates speak of their crimes, life and death, redemption and remorselessness, insanity and hope. The film tracks them though their unrelenting days over several months, lifting the veil on one of Russia's most secretive subcultures to reveal what happens when a man is locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day, for life. A startling insight into inscrutable minds and the forbidding world they have been condemned to. (Storyville)
2013-06-27 | en
7.3
German Concentration Camps Factual Survey
On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).
2017-01-06 | en
0.0
Indictment: The Crimes of Shelly Chartier
Sensationalized in the media as a high profile catfishing case involving an NBA superstar and an aspiring model, Shelly Chartier was portrayed as a master manipulator who used social media as her weapon. Through the sensitive and intelligent lens of Indigenous directors Lisa Jackson and Shane Belcourt, the sensationalism is swept aside to reveal something much more compelling and complex - the story of a young woman caught in historical circumstances beyond her control and how she struggles to rebuild her life after incarceration.
2017-10-29 | en
6.7
The Big One
The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.
1997-09-06 | en
8.0
Cash Crop
Undercover for nearly 2 years, award winning director and musician, Adam Ross is finally going public with his latest film. CASH CROP is a feature length documentary road trip throughout California to the Emerald Triangle and the heart of the American Dream exploring America’s largest cash crop: marijuana.
2010-10-02 | en
0.0
Still Trippin' The Trans-Canada Highway
Still Trippin' The Trans-Canada Highway is a cross Canada tour taking a look at our rights, freedoms and cannabis activism.
2013-01-01 | en
0.0
Citizen Marc
Canadian Marc Emery's pot activism leads him to an American prison.
2014-10-17 | en
0.0
Sons of Wood
Don Luis Valdez is a luthier of traditional music instruments, who embarks on the task of teaching a group of inmates from the "Santiago 1" prison (Chile), to build a guitar.
2014-09-11 | es
6.4
Survivor's Guide to Prison
Today, you're more likely to go to prison in the United States than anywhere else in the world. So in the unfortunate case it should happen to you - this is the Survivors Guide to Prison.
2018-02-23 | en
0.0
Met While Incarcerated
Documentary about the love stories of 3 prison wives seeking grace for the violent offenders they love.
| en
6.5
Grass
Marijuana is the most controversial drug of the 20th Century. Smoked by generations to little discernible ill effect, it continues to be reviled by many governments on Earth. In this Genie Award-winning documentary veteran Canadian director Ron Mann and narrator Woody Harrelson mix humour and historical footage together to recount how the United States has demonized a relatively harmless drug.
1999-09-15 | en
6.0
America's Greatest Prison Breaks
A look at the prison breakout of Richard Matt and David Sweat from Clinton Correctional facility, as well as a look back at some of the most daring and ingenious prison breaks in American history.
2015-12-27 | en
0.0
Fresh Start: A Marcus Harvin Story
“Fresh Start: A Marcus Harvin Story” presents an intimate portrayal of Marcus Harvin’s journey as he transcends his past to make a profound impact on the lives of those around him. The documentary offers a rare glimpse into Marcus’s daily life, capturing his heartfelt mission to share not only food but also compassion through his innovative non-profit organization, Fresh Start. Through candid interviews with key figures in Marcus’s life, including Stephanie Harvin, Babatunde Akinjobi, and Bradley Woodworth, the film illuminates Marcus’s unwavering determination and the vital support system that has helped him achieve his dreams. Viewers are invited to follow Marcus for a day, witnessing his dream project in action—an extraordinary restaurant concept where the only payment required is one’s presence.
2024-06-30 | en
6.9
My Life Inside
Rosa is a Mexican woman who, at the age of 17, migrated illegally to Austin, Texas. Some years later, she was jailed under suspicion of murder and then taken to trial. This film demonstrates how the judicial process, the verdict, the separation from her family, and the helplessness of being imprisoned in a foreign country make Rosa’s story an example of the hard life of Mexican migrants in the United States.
2007-01-16 | es
0.0
Stereotypy
Animal captivity is a human decision. An apparently invisible but in the eyes of anyone behavioral pattern, calls into question the deprivation of freedom through a paranoid choreography.
| es
1.0
Bad to The Bong: 16 Years of Ebee
Ebee is back and what better way to celebrate her return than with this killer documentary feature! Pack your pipe and relive Ebee’s incredible 16 year legacy
2022-04-20 | en