The “ultimate bed and breakfast,” as Virginia’s former director of corrections Ron Angelo called the prison system, isn’t a pleasant stay. Such was the theme of an independently produced documentary Up the Ridge, which examines the “supermax” Wallens Ridge State Prison, located in the southwestern tip of Virginia. Several dozen locals turned out October 4 for a screening and subsequent discussion at Sojourners United Church of Christ.
Drawing on testimony from former inmates, families of inmates, ex-prison guards and various prison officials, Up the Ridge focuses on the ugly side of the facility, and the prison system at large—stun gun overuse, five-point restraints, middle-of-the-night facility transfers and the visitation difficulties for poor families in distant states like Connecticut. In the film, Angelo says that housing out-of-Virginia inmates at facilities like Wallens Ridge produced an $80 million profit for the state.
“For some people, it’s hard to imagine that human rights is an issue in the U.S.,” says Nick Szuberla, one of the filmmakers. “Doing screenings at community colleges and churches is a different way to get at that dialogue.” Szuberla says inspiration for the film came from prison letters detailing abuses that inmates sent to a radio station, near Wallens Ridge, where he and fellow filmmaker Amelia Kirby ran a hip-hop radio program.
“In a sea of bluegrass and country music, we were the one hip-hop show,” says Szuberla. “It’s a very community radio station where people thought they might be heard.” Many of the sources for the documentary came from those who called and wrote in to the station.
Local players with stakes in the prison system shared thoughts following the film screening, though the dialogue consisted mostly of head-nodding rather than contention. Attorney Steven Rosenfield, after attacking Ron Angelo’s tenure as Virginia’s director of corrections, commented that “politics and money still are the driving forces in corrections.” Jim Hingeley, Charlottesville-Albemarle public defender, commented that over the past several years, “we’ve eliminated the concept of rehabilitation in prisons.” Reverend Eddie Howard of The Abundant Life Ministries, himself a former inmate, said that government—and society in general—need to focus on prison aftercare to ease the transition for the 95 percent of ex-cons who rejoin their communities.—Will Goldsmith