I've seen them all: Cool Hand Luke, Papillon, Brubaker, The Birdman of Alcatraz, Escape from Alcatraz, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Midnight Express - prison movies just don't do it for me. Let's be honest here, what do you get: a pinch of injustice, a tablespoon of malice, two and a half pounds of sirloin claustrophobia, a drop of retribution, a dusting of redemption and a love interest involving one man brutalising another - really, forget it. But because incarceration has recently been front-page news in this country, I decided to take another look at The Shawshank Redemption, considering the week that's in it.
Based on Stephen King's Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, this film tells the story of a starched and pressed, whiter than white-collared money man, Andy Dufresne and his social demotion from man about town to man about prison. Convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, Andy didn't need the flashing lights of an elevator to let him know that he was going down. But following a rather disorienting week of orientation, he set about manipulating the system and ultimately beating it.
I guess Andy was the type of guy who felt it could never happen to him; not being born into the criminal class, it was as if prison was beneath him. The identification of the criminal class is never a straightforward affair. In most cultures, class is defined by wealth and social standing, but if criminals by the nature of their lucrative activity are wealthy, why then are our prisons bulging at the bars with the poor? It's probably a throwback to a time when poverty equalled criminality.
If we are to learn anything from the stream of documentaries and mockumentaries that have stopped the revolving door to give us a look inside, when it comes to dealing with crime, prison is as effective as King Canute was at stopping the sea. Zero Tolerance will nip a crime wave in the bud, but the bush will grow back stronger the following year. Anyone who has played Monopoly knows that jail's just doin' time.
I've been in and out of various corrective institutions over the past six years giving readings to inmates, and last year a play of mine was produced for the prisoners of Cork Prison and the Women's section in Mountjoy. It's a rare privilege to be invited into this hidden world within a world. An emotionally charged and enlightening experience, and maybe that's why, for me, the jury's out regarding the effectiveness of corporal punishment or incarceration as a way of dealing with crime. But without prisons, what do we do with these villains when we've rounded them all up? Recently I had a most unexpected opportunity to ask a criminal his views on stamping out crime.
There I was curled up in bed asleep, not sound asleep mind you, 'cause as sure as sleep comes at night-time, night-time brings darkness and darkness brings fear. Maybe that's why I woke up startled at 2:43 a.m., knowing that everything was not quite right.
Down on the street two gurriers interfering with the car; a shot of adrenalin to the head. In basic instinct mode, I pulled my trousers on and cleared the bed in one leap, bursting my toe on the door jamb. I looked around for some form of defence and found a mop I never knew I had. Waking my trusty guard dog Finbarr, we took the stairs in three strides. And there I was, naked to the navel, barefoot on the footpath with the mop perched under my shoulder like a gun.
"Hold it right there, street slime!"
The hoodie on the passenger seat legged it. My attention turned to the mullet in the driver's side. I pointed the mop at his gut, index finger primed in the place where the trigger should be.
`Hands up!" I growled, realising a second too late that the mop wasn't loaded. Guess I'd seen one too many Westerns. The villain just smiled at me; a smirk of defiance camouflaged by scars. He stepped out of the car. In the cold light of night, I suddenly felt vulnerable. It was a one on one and he was the tough guy. The imponderable of life flashed before my mind: what am I doing here? I don't even own a car! Where's the dog?
Relying on my insight into the criminal class, I tried the appealing to reason approach.
"How would you like it, if I broke into your car?" I asked.
"You wouldn't!" he hissed. I expected a well-rehearsed statement on private property versus the dispossession of poverty.
"You wouldn't want to!" he echoed. " 'cause I'd break every bone in yer body if ya did!"
He made no bones about breaking mine. I stood there shoeless, without a leg to stand on, while this citizen from the criminal class gave me an insider's solution to crime - and who would know better? He brushed the mop handle to one side and, heading off down the street, he patted Finbarr between the ears, then vanished into the night.
So there I was, thinking hanging was too good for him, my liberal conscience over-ruled by my reality. I suppose, If you want to stop a leak, ask a plumber; if you want to stop crime, ask a criminal.
Getting back to The Shawshank Redemption, any film with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman can't be all bad. And if you're not averse to some mushy male bonding of a platonic nature, there's a nice little plot twist at the end. But personally, when it comes to prison movies, I've done my time.
