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Not Working On a Chain Gang

By Nikki Davis
Columbus Alive | December 7, 2005
Given the recent execution of the country's 1,000th prisoner since the reinstatement of the death penalty, the perennial question of what to do with our violent criminals is again the subject of national (and international) debate. In American Chain Gang, the attendant questions of rehabilitation and recidivism are examined through another once-abandoned then reinstated practice.

Originally conceived to replace lost slave labor in the South following Reconstruction and practiced until the 1960s, chain gangs returned in 1995 when Alabama became the first state to restore the controversial practice of shackling prisoners together while they perform menial labor. In the documentary, inmates, prison guards and legal experts raise issues ranging from inept parenting and educational and work opportunities to race and the use of taxpayer money in the penal system.

One septuagenarian, who spent time on a chain gang and says he'd commit suicide before having to do it again, is pretty skeptical of the practice's ability to rehabilitate anyone. He asks, "How can you learn something when the system is designed for you to come back?" While the documentary doesn't pretend to offer any practical answers to that question, it does effectively explore the psychological, emotional and social ramifications of our modern sense of justice.
Tags: gangs, American Chain Gang, chain, Xackery Irving

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