“Ol’ Shawshank” 7.17.2022, Mansfield, OH ••••• A few days ago my band played a festival held on the grounds of the Ohio State Reformatory, & I got a private tour of the building. This was the prison used as the set for the film The Shawshank Redemption. When it opened in 1896, the OSR was truly a reformatory- there was a program geared towards rehabilitation, inmates were taught a trade, & for several years the recidivism rate was very low. Then came the Great Depression, prisons became overcrowded, & eventually rehabilitation was abandoned as the OSR turned into a maximum security facility, something it was never designed for. The prison was finally closed in 1990 by order of the Federal Government, as the prisoners brought forth a class action lawsuit citing overcrowding & inhumane conditions. Looking at the condition of the building, I couldn’t believe that it had remained open that long- it was a real horror show inside. Walking through the building, I had the eerie realization that precisely 10 years ago on that day, I was in a different prison, one even 7 years older than the OSR. It too is a crumbling edifice full of mold entirely unfit to house humans, yet it remains open today. But I was only there for a comparatively short time, far away in a different country, & this is modern-day America, right? Well... the U.S. is the world’s leader in incarceration. We have more of our population locked up than any other nation on earth- in 2015 the USA represented 4.4% of the world’s population, but we had 21% of the world’s prisoners. It would seem that here, in the “land of the free”, we have a problem. While the shareholders of privatized, for-profit, corporate correctional facilities are stoked (“McPrisonTM️- I’m lovin’ it!”), everyone else should ask themselves why this is. And btw, young people, while you’re pondering this- don’t do some dumb shit that could get you sent to prison. Trust me, it SUCKS. ••••• #Leica #LeicaCamera #LeicaCameraUSA #LeicaM #LeicaM10P #LeicaM10Ptyp3656 #🔴📷 #Summilux #Summilux35mm #LeicaCraft #MadeInWetzlar #MKexplore #drandallblythe #RatsEyesPhotography #honetheaesthetic