Hi all,

I am a documentary filmmaking student in New York City (originally from Ireland) and I am currently in pre-production for a 20-30 minute documentary about the prison system here in the United States. What I am hoping to do is to take sections from letters from prisoners, both past and present, (without using their names, or, if they agree, using their names) to describe a typical day for inmates but also to include other information about them, their hobbies, their interests, their life in general. These letters would not be directed to me, but ones that are already in existence between the prisoner and their girlfriend/boyfriend/friends/family members/pen pals, anyone that has correspondence from an inmate.

I would be really so grateful for your help with this undertaking. I believe that a really powerful and moving documentary could be made, showing the life of a prisoner, from the prisoner's perspective.

Please feel free to message me here and I can forward you my e-mail address. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I really look forward to speaking with you.

Kind regards,
Marieclaire27

Good luck!

Thank you!

Do you want the letters themselves, or just the words?

I know you say you want to portray a typical day of a prisoner in the USA but what are you trying to achieve if anything at all with this documentary?

How will letters from an outside source portray their day? Many do not receive mail as i am sure you know. Are you targeting a specific gender, age, years served, gang member, back ground, ethnicity etc. What criteria are you looking for or wanting to work with?

What I want to do is to show that people in prison are human with thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams, hard pasts, good pasts, struggles and obstacles - the same as anyone else. (Except that their struggles are undoubtedly harder than the very majority) Age/gender/gang member/ethnicity - it's not going to be defined in this documentary. All references to names and locations can be deleted. I want people to really understand the impact of incarceration. This is my goal, to make people think. Any letters that you have, even if you think they are irrelevant, you can send them to me. I promise that I am going to read everyone and I also promise to treat all names/locations with the utmost discretion. Also, a typical day is just the starting idea... as you can see from the above, it will delve into the life of a prisoner in greater detail - or, at least, I really hope it will. Thank you for your questions, please feel free to ask anything else you like.

Yes, it would be great to have a copy of the letters but whatever you can manage would be excellent. Thank you!

I don't know about others but I would have a hard time sending the actual letters. They are pretty personal for me and wouldn't want them out there. I would also think that the inmate should have some sort of say if their letters were being copied and sent off to an anonymous person. Maybe some wouldn't mind.

I could type out sections of my husband's letters, and in fact if you go to PTO then there is a long post on there in the Texas section that is his words, but there is no way I would part with either his or my pal's letters.

There are plenty of blogs that detail inmates' lives and the lives of their friends and family. Lots of information is already out there in the public domain.

But those that have someone to correspond with are the ones who are struggling marginally less than those who have no one.

I also think the general public already knows that prisoners are "humans too". The viewing population is not that stupid. But there are those that care and take action already (such as writing) and those that wouldn't care even if you made a million documentaries.