David Ben Gurion said that he dreamed of Israel becoming a
normal nation like other nations -- with crime and prostitution. No worries there -- we have become entirely
normalized! Liat Mer's documentary,
Locked Down, provides a glimpse at life in a woman's prison in central
Israel, Neve Tirza, which houses 200 inmates.
Having viewed the TV series Orange is the New Black,
I expected this film to include cruelty, exploitation and violence, and I
hesitated before previewing it. But none
of that is seen here. In fact, the
opposite is true. We see a prison where
the young women are treated well, where they have a lot of their own personal
possessions in their cells, and where getting an education is a primary
objective. The education officer,
guards, and warden all seem compassionate and define their jobs as not
necessarily relating to the crimes that these women have committed but rather
to how they can help them in their lives in the prison and in adapting to the
outside world after they are released.
The film focuses on three young women. The first is a lesbian woman who has taken a
new name for her new identity. She now
calls herself Shawn. She has been
sentenced to two years for assault.
Shawn is a beautiful singer,
works serving food to the other inmates, and helps in the education
wing. Her only desire is to obtain early
parole. Maria has been sentenced to four
and a half years for violently stabbing a girl who had threatened her
grandmother. She has an infant who lives
with her in her cell. As the baby grows,
it's not so easy for Maria to come to grips with the fact that it isn't in the
child's best interest to be brought up behind bars. Nariman has been sentenced to three years and
has to pay 10,000 NIS as part of the verdict.
She is trying to raise the money by telephone chatting with men from
another prison.
These young women have charm and want nothing more than to
get on with their lives. We learn about
their daily concerns -- dieting, paying
for phone cards, wondering when they will have visits, worrying about the
parole board and dreaming about their future. At the same time, we are able to see another
side of Israeli society -- a side that isn't written about so often, but is
tragic nonetheless -- a powerful look at the ethnic diversity and the difficulties
of life for young women who have gotten off to a bad start.
Locked Down (documentary, 56 minutes) is available from Ruth Diskin Films.
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