Rise and Reform

TW: This blog post contains mentions of mental health issues, child sexual assault and physical abuse. Reader discretion is advised. 

A few days ago I wrote a review on the first episode of 60 Days In, a docuseries on Netflix about 7 participants who go under cover in a prison to help expose corruption. I thought I would update my review after having seen the entire first season. 

Watching this show has been a really interesting experience. Of course, with any docuseries it’s good to stay objective while watching. At the end of the day, this is basically a reality show. They have cinematographers and editors shooting what they want to shoot and editing out what they want to edit out. 

Some of the changes I noticed in the participants as the season moved forward have been really refreshing to watch. Some changes have been disappointing. Some of the participants still wouldn’t take it seriously, but some completely had a change of heart and completely altered how they view the prison system in ways that could actually be beneficial. 

I didn’t love that some of the participants came into the show with the intention of pointing out what the inmates were doing wrong and how they could improve, rather than helping change their living conditions. When you aren’t being treated like a human being, it is really hard to keep your mental health together. 

The end of season 1 really reminded me that this is in fact a reality show. All of the participants were brought into a talk show setting to debrief and talk about their experiences behind bars. The questions they were asked were very suggestive, and ended up leading to some very heated conversations. I’ll let you watch that episode to decide if you agree! 

One thing I did really love hearing about that episode, though, was Tami’s perspective. I wrote about Tami briefly during my first review, she was a police officer who grew up in foster care and group homes. I say she was a police officer. After she finished her 60 days behind bars, she retired from the police force stating she didn’t feel comfortable putting people behind bars knowing what inmates go through every day. She now volunteers with a program that helps inmates reintegrate into normal life after going through the prison system.

Another participant I talked about, Barbra, who was a stay at home mom and military wife, also had a big change of heart. At the beginning of the experiment, she seemed to have some very rigid ideas about what prison is like. By the end of the experiment, she thought the women she met were wonderful people. She learned not to make snap judgements because the women she met ended up becoming her really good friends. 

There was a moment during the interview with the male participants that really stood out to me. During the experiment, some of the other inmates got into a fight about the food someone had on his lunch tray. The officers understood that there was probably more to the fight than that, like a pre existing feud, but I’m willing to bet there was even more going on. Prison can really increase tension. It can cause pre existing mental health conditions to flare, and even create new ones. I wish this show would do a better job of acknowledging just how horrible and inhumane it is behind bars. 

The men who participated also spoke about how an inmate punched one of the participants. After the experiment ended and they got a chance to debrief, they found out the inmate has schizophrenia and heard voices telling him that the participant in question was a child predator. The inmate was given medication in jail, but the officers didn’t notice that he wasn’t actually taking the pills. This moment has stuck with me because it proves how ineffective prison really is, especially for people struggling with mental illness. That incident would not have happened if that inmate was put into a psychiatric facility actually equipped to treat him. 

It is true that a good chunk of the inmates in this show have committed some serious crimes and have done some pretty bad things. The problem is that we have seen time and time again that perpetuating that cycle of abuse by putting people in prison does not fix the problem. Despite what people in prison have done, they are still human beings who deserve to be rehabilitated instead of punished and abused. 

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*Please see my previous post for photo credits and more info on 60 Days In*