That is the first statement visitors see at Eastern State Penitentiary’s new exhibit: Prisons Today.
On May 6, 2016, a groundbreaking new exhibit, Prisons Today: Questions in the Age of Mass Incarceration, opens at Eastern State Penitentiary. The United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, by far, with 2.2 million citizens in prison or jail. This phenomenon has generally been driven by changes in laws, policing, and sentencing, not by changes in behavior. The results have disproportionately impacted poor and disenfranchised communities (mostly communities of color). In contrast, these historic changes remain nearly invisible to many Americans.
This new interactive exhibit sheds light on these issues. It elicits personal connections to recent historic changes in the U.S. criminal justice system, encourages reflection, supports dialogue, and suggests steps that visitors can take to help shape the evolution of the American criminal justice system moving forward.
Eastern State Penitentiary, known as the world’s first true penitentiary, located in Philadelphia, operated until 1971, and has since been turned into a museum.
The new exhibit on mass incarceration is noteworthy in its own right. It seeks to inform through multiple media forms: interactive displays, video and art installations, and even incorporating pieces derived from former prison inmates, who will also act as tour guides. And, in a sort of contrast to a museum’s usual aims, it seeks to provide visitors with contemporary information: on opening day, one of its boards already needed an update.
However, what really makes this new exhibit really groundbreaking is the bold statement interwoven throughout. The framing of the discussion is what many people might consider highly political, especially when it comes to issues of racial disparities illustrated in the system.
Take, for example, the highlighted centerpiece statement: Mass Incarceration Isn’t Working.
This is one of the first messages displayed to visitors of the exhibit. And considering Eastern State’s status as a museum, a US Historic Landmark, there was debate on taking a more neutral stand.
"That's not honest," said senior vice president Sean Kelley. "The honest answer is that everyone recognizes it is inefficient, and we have way, way, way more people inside the prisons that is necessary for a safe community."
The exhibit also finds numerous ways to communicate the role racial disparity plays in our ever-growing prison population. One can learn how factors such as “the size of the budget of one’s school district, ethnic background, or early exposure to crime and violence” determine who ends up incarcerated. There is also a display describing the “million dollar block,” “referring to the amount spent on imprisoning residents of some blocks in America.”
For an institution such as a museum to take such a bold stance on such a highly politicized issue is significant. When the goal is often to educate visitors and drive attendance, risking offending or alienating anyone is often the default position. But sometimes, to truly inspire critical thought, a provocative, yet powerful statement is necessary.
Seth Bruggeman, a Temple University historian who had criticized the museum's failure to address contemporary criminal justice issues, recently wrote a letter nominating The Big Graph for an award.
"For many years, ESP's preservation mission enabled a kind of historical amnesia. Visitors could, if they chose to, appreciate the 'preserved ruin' as just a ghostly trace of a distant past. The Big Graph shatters that illusion," he wrote.
In opening this new exhibit, Eastern State Penitentiary is doing what few other historical museums would ever attempt. It links the bones of its source material — one of the first prisons used for mass incarceration — to the issues it was meant to address, and follows them through the winding road of American history to the modern era, and shines an unrelenting light on its own failures. Rather than glorifying, rationalizing, or simply documenting its impact on society, ESP is living up to a mission to educate and inform its visitors, so that their consumption of the message can lead to a change of its own.
I also draw a larger connection to the Democratic Party. By coincidence, the Democratic Party is having its National Convention in the same city of Philadelphia this year. And, a lot of the themes that will be running through the convention, rather the whole Presidential election season — civil rights, racism, justice, and perhaps even America’s prison problem — also run through this new exhibit, meant to inform people. I think as a party, we must also take home some lessons from Eastern State: we can’t shy away from staring down the toughest issues we face in American today. We need the people to be informed on these issues — but even if they do not agree, like the Prisons Today exhibit, we ought to find ways to reach out to people, and educate them in new ways. And, let’s get the general public to start having those discussions.
The museum intends to keep Prisons Today for three years, so if you find yourself in Philly in that time frame, I hope you go see this new exhibit, and help support the museum, and its mission.