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
6.0
Rikers
This film from Bill Moyers is the first documentary to focus exclusively on people formerly detained in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island Jail. They tell their compelling stories direct to the camera, revealing the violent arc of the Rikers experience – from the trauma of entry to extortion and control by inmates, to oppressive corrections officers, violence and solitary confinement.
2016-11-12 | en
0.0
The Execution Machine: Texas Death Row
Explores the realities of death-row inmates inside Huntsville (Texas) Unit, a prison with the highest number of executions in 1997. Features interviews with prisoners, guards, officials, lawyers and victims' family members.
1997-03-10 | en
6.5
Jailbreak: Love on the Run
An Alabama corrections officer falls in love with a man awaiting trial for murder and risks it all to help him escape.
2024-09-24 | en
6.6
Old Thieves: The Legend of Artegio
Is the story of a generation of thieves who achieved their greatest victories in the sixties; their distinctive code of ethics, the various categories of delinquents inhabiting the citys streets, their alliances with high ranking police officials that allowed them to operate, the betrayals that followed, and the price they ended up paying.
2007-03-15 | es
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
6.3
Meth Storm
As police and DEA agents battle sophisticated cartels, rural, economically-disadvantaged users and dealers–whose addiction to ICE and lack of job opportunities have landed them in an endless cycle of poverty and incarceration–are caught in the middle.
2017-03-11 | en
6.8
Standard Operating Procedure
Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.
2008-02-12 | en
5.5
Cruel and Unusual
Five transgender women share their prison experiences. Interviews with attorneys, doctors, and other experts are also included.
2006-10-24 | en
7.5
Woodstock
An intimate look at the Woodstock Music & Art Festival held in Bethel, NY in 1969, from preparation through cleanup, with historic access to insiders, blistering concert footage, and portraits of the concertgoers; negative and positive aspects are shown, from drug use by performers to naked fans sliding in the mud, from the collapse of the fences by the unexpected hordes to the surreal arrival of National Guard helicopters with food and medical assistance for the impromptu city of 500,000.
1970-03-26 | en
7.0
Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo
71 years in the making, this feature documentary experience reveals the extraordinary life journey of Hollywood's most unlikely hero, Danny Trejo.
2019-09-21 | en
7.0
kid 90
As a teenager in the '90s, Soleil Moon Frye carried a video camera everywhere she went. She documented hundreds of hours of footage and then locked it away for over 20 years.
2021-03-12 | en
7.3
The Red Elvis
A documentary on the late American entertainer Dean Reed, who became a huge star in East Germany after settling there in 1973.
2007-02-13 | de
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
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
7.3
The World's Most Luxurious Prison
Former conservative Justice Secretary Ann Widdecombe visits a Norwegian prison that has been described as the most luxurious of its kind.
2020-11-13 | en
7.5
George Clinton: Tales of Dr Funkenstein
Don Letts's hilarious and colourful profile of the godfather of funk, whose 50-year career has defined the genre. From his 1950s days running a doo-wop group out of the back of his barber store, through the madness of the monster Parliament/Funkadelic machine of the 70s to his late 90s hip-hop collaborations with Dre and Snoop, George Clinton has inspired generations of imitators. Contributors include Outkast's Andre 3000 and Macy Gray.
2006-10-27 | en
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
8.0
Hard Time: The Making of Prison
Retrospective documentary on the making of the low-budget horror film Prison (1987)
2013-02-10 | en
7.4
Man on Wire
On August 7th 1974, French tightrope walker Philippe Petit stepped out on a high wire, illegally rigged between New York's World Trade Center twin towers, then the world's tallest buildings. After nearly an hour of performing on the wire, 1,350 feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan, he was arrested. This fun and spellbinding documentary chronicles Philippe Petit's "highest" achievement.
2008-08-01 | en
6.0
Prisoners of the War on Drugs
From its beginning during the Reagan years through current times, the War on Drugs has left many victims stranded in the prison system. PRISONERS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS reveals life behind bars in the nation’s prisons. Each prisoner has his or her own story, but for most, the story is predictably similar; they have been criminalized for drugs or drug related offenses, locked up with easy access to substances, and given little opportunity for rehabilitation. This film provides an inside look at the prison system, its prisoners and a war on drugs we do not seem to be winning.
1996-01-08 | en