Corrections Documentary Project is an ongoing body of work on the prison-industrial complex, centred upon the politics and economics of, and resistance to, the massive expansion of the US prisoner population since the 1970s (now referred to as mass incarceration). The project is comprised of nine videos and maps that reveal the manner in which this system helps to structure and preserve the racial and economic hierarchies we associate with the past in today’s society.

Corrections is the first film in the series, focused upon the re-emergence of prison privatization since the 1980s. Tracing its history, the film uses the profit motivations of that industry to help us recognize the pursuit of power and control that drives mass incarceration. Out of this film grew a series of short videos, Footnotes, which explore these issues and grassroots efforts to oppose the system within specific histories and local organizing efforts. Along with the Prison Maps, the project demonstrates the growth of the prison system for reasons “other than justice,” where prisons are offered by the state to solve problems of poverty and joblessness, health and mental health crises. The project also addresses the symptoms that come from the legacies of racial and class warfare— in both the rural communities where new prisons are commonly built and the urban communities from which prisoners most often come.