Andrew Jarecki

And so, you know, we say – and I think it's sadly true that the Alabama Department of Corrections – and it's not just in Alabama, but obviously we use that as the lens through which we saw incarceration more generally –

But the Alabama Department of Corrections is the largest law enforcement agency in the state of Alabama.

And it's also the biggest drug dealing operation.

You know, you're much more likely to die of an overdose inside the prison than you are out on the street in Alabama.

Yeah.

He didn't steal anything.

Entering an unoccupied building.

Yeah.

His name is James.

Yeah.

It said entering.

Yeah.

This goes back to the story of a woman who we had met and her son.

When we were first communicating with the men using these contraband cell phones and they were telling us what was going on inside the prison.

inside the various prisons.

In the early days, we couldn't believe it because the way we got into the prisons to begin with is I had gone down to Alabama because I was always interested in incarceration and the problems of that system and the justice system.

I made other films about the justice system.

And I was always curious about Alabama because it's sort of famously maybe the worst prison system in the country, but it mirrors a lot of others.

And my daughter was 14 at the time, Jeremy, and she said, you know, I'm reading this book by a guy named Anthony Ray Hinton.

And it's a book about his wrongful imprisonment in Alabama.