Prison Terminal:
The Last Days of Private Jack Hall
Becker Communication Studies Building, Room 101 (map)
Friday, September 5
Parking available in Library Lot 3, west of Main Library ($.60/hour)
7 pm - Film screening
8 pm - Q&A with Prison Terminal Director Edgar Barens
Reception to follow in BCSB Lobby
In conjunction with the Incarcerated in Iowa Symposium, you are invited to a public screening of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall. The screening is presented by the film's director, Edgar Barens, who will be in attendance and will host a Q & A session afterwards. This unique opportunity is offered for free and is open to the public.
About the film
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall is a moving cinema verité documentary that breaks through the walls of one of America's oldest maximum-security prisons to tell the story of the final months in the life of a terminally ill prisoner, Jack Hall and the hospice volunteers, they themselves prisoners, who care for him.
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall draws from footage shot over a six-month period behind the walls of Iowa State Penitentiary and provides a fascinating and often poignant account of how the hospice experience can profoundly touch even the forsaken lives of the incarcerated.
About the filmmaker
Edgar Barens (Director) received his Bachelors degree and Masters of Fine Arts in Cinema and Photography from Southern Illinois University. Barens directs and produces documentary films that explore the many issues at play in the American criminal justice system. Prior to Prison Terminal, Edgar's most significant documentary film was A Sentence of Their Own, for which he garnered the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) award -- the only national award recognizing filmmakers who focus on our criminal justice system in a thoughtful and considerate manner.
Barens' work has received funding from the Illinois Arts Council, the Open Society Institute's Project on Death in America and the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, the Independent Feature Project, the International Documentary Association, with additional support from Working Films and the Blue Mountain Center. Barens is currently a Visiting Media Specialist at the Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
About prison hospice
From the early 1990s until now, the number of state and federal prisoners age 50 and older has grown an astonishing 172 percent. Some estimates claim that within the next fifteen to twenty years, over 20 percent of the United States prison population will be classified as elderly.
Over the past decade, hospice programs have become increasingly common in communities around the country, and the movement is also gaining a foothold among state, federal, and municipal prison administrations. Currently there are 75 prison hospice programs throughout the United States, with exceptional programs operating in Oregon, New York, Minnesota, California, Kentucky, and Iowa. But the need is great and many more programs are necessary.
In the community hospice model an interdisciplinary team (IDT)
consisting of the family members, physicians, nurses, social workers,
counselors, clergy, and trained volunteers cares for the patient, offering support based on their particular areas of expertise. Together they provide comprehensive care aimed at relieving pain and giving social, emotional, and spiritual support.
The prison hospice model, however, has an additional element that distinguishes it from the community hospice model in the free world. Added to the IDT within the correctional setting is the crucial element of security. Maintaining safety within the walls and for the public at large is the primary function of a prison, and this must be maintained even in a hospice setting. Once the security component is effectively added to the IDT, the decision of whether to incorporate prisoner hospice volunteers vs. community hospice volunteers into the program must be made.
Prisoners as caregivers
In any hospice setting, whether it is in the free world or behind bars, volunteers play an important role in planning and giving hospice care to their patients. They are instrumental in providing companionship and may listen, reassure, share worries and concerns, hold a hand; help feed, or just sit quietly with the patient.
For some prison hospice programs, prisoner hospice volunteers are not included in the program for fear that they may find it difficult to follow the rules of hospice, steal from or abuse their patient in some way. In such cases, the community hospice sends in community volunteers to administer care and compassion to the dying prisoner.
While this practice is noble and well intentioned, it must be recognized that the connection a dying prisoner has with a community hospice representative is not as strong as the connection that patient would have with a fellow prisoner who understands the plight of dying in prison -– because he himself may be dying in prison one day.
Of the current 75 prison hospice programs, only a handful of facilities have taken the risk to incorporate prisoners as hospice volunteers. And almost without exception the risk has paid back ten-fold by the rehabilitative nature of hospice. The program has allowed the prisoners, many for the first time in their lives, to show compassion, love, and respect for a fellow human being.
The redemptive qualities of the program have also made their way out into the general population of the prison, lifting the veil of fear and mystery from the prison infirmary as the “second death house” of the penitentiary.
On the whole, it has been noted that prisoner volunteers are deeply
invested in their hospice and offer exceptional care and companionship to their patients -– often exceeding the expectations of prison administrators. The prisoner volunteers are well aware that the success of the hospice rests upon their shoulders and in turn will guarantee there will be a hospice program for them when their time comes.
It is the hope of the filmmaker that Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall will assist in making prison-based, prisoner-run hospice services the national standard throughout the U.S. correctional system, ensuring that prisoners no longer have to die alone, far from their loved ones.