Trapped (Mental Illness in America’s Prisons)Trapped (Mental Illness in America’s Prisons)

A Story by Jenn Ackerman (read below her bio)

[This project was named Non-Traditional Photojournalism Publishing Project of the Year and the project’s short film won an Emmy]

 I first saw Jenn Ackerman’s story, TRAPPED, featured on PDN and was immediately drawn to it. I was captivated, not only by her incredibly evocative images of stark prison cells, isolation, and psychosis but also by the concept behind them. Mental illness in American prisons is unfamiliar ground to most and although I was aware of it, I had never seen it up close. Jenn has the unbelievable ability to make the viewer feel as if they are right there with her. She did what many of us could not and confronted a growing issue within our correctional facilities. The number of mentally ill inmates is staggering, in her article she quotes Sergeant Jeremy Rioux, “It’s a thin line between mental health and security.”

Grace Roth/S4C New York City

(click to see the photgallery)

The continuous withdrawal of mental health funding has turned jails and prisons across the U.S. into the default mental health facilities. The system designed for security is now trapped with treating mental illness and the mentally ill are often trapped inside the system with nowhere else to go.

My intention was to make photos that forced the viewer to feel what I felt when I was inside the prison. There were days that I was extremely scared and others that I left thinking how much someone on the outside missed them. Some days, I had to remind myself that many of these men had done heinous things. There were also days when I was reminded that some of these men have faded into the system with no hope of getting out.

(click to see the photo gallery)

I saw them cry. I saw them hit themselves so hard in the head that they bled. I saw them throw their feces at the officers. I saw a world most people don’t even know exists in America.

The project portrays the daily struggle inside the walls of the unit redesigned to treat mental illness and maintain the level of security required in a prison. The photos take viewers into an institution where the criminally insane are sometimes locked up in their cells for 23 hours a day with nothing to occupy their minds but their own demons.

Jenn Ackerman

———-

Who’s Jenn Ackerman

We are really delighted to introduce you Jen Ackerman.

Jen is a photographer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She received a bachelor’s degree in social research from James Madison University, studied photography at the Danish School of Journalism and most recently, she received a master’s degree in visual communications from Ohio University.

Her focus has been on subcultures in the United States that are often misunderstood and overlooked including mental illness in prison, HIV in rural America, and families living in Appalachia.

Jen likes to work in intimate settings and bring viewers into situations and stories that rarely are told.

In 2012, she was named to PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch. Her photographs has been recognized by the Inge Morath Award, Magnum Expression Award, CENTER Project Competition, Photojournalism Competition on Human Rights, Emerging Photographer Fund, the PGB Photo Award, the Honickman First Book Prize and others. In 2009, she was published in the Communication Arts Photography Annual and named to Photolucida’s Critical Mass Top 50.

Her multimedia and video have been recognized with an honorable mention for a Webby and a Telly and two of her short films have been screened at film festivals around the country. One of her most recent projects, Trapped, was named Non-Traditional Photojournalism Publishing Project of the Year and the project’s short film won an EmmyA Story by Jenn Ackerman (read below her bio)

[This project was named Non-Traditional Photojournalism Publishing Project of the Year and the project’s short film won an Emmy]

I first saw Jenn Ackerman’s story, TRAPPED, featured on PDN and was immediately drawn to it.  I was captivated, not only by her incredibly evocative images of stark prison cells, isolation, and psychosis but also by the concept behind them.  Mental illness in American prisons is unfamiliar ground to most and although I was aware of it, I had never seen it up close.  Jenn has the unbelievable ability to make the viewer feel as if they are right there with her.  She did what many of us could not and confronted a growing issue within our correctional facilities.  The number of mentally ill inmates is staggering, in her article she quotes Sergeant Jeremy Rioux, “It’s a thin line between mental health and security.”

Grace Roth/S4C New York City

(click to see the photgallery)

The continuous withdrawal of mental health funding has turned jails and prisons across the U.S. into the default mental health facilities. The system designed for security is now trapped with treating mental illness and the mentally ill are often trapped inside the system with nowhere else to go.

My intention was to make photos that forced the viewer to feel what I felt when I was inside the prison. There were days that I was extremely scared and others that I left thinking how much someone on the outside missed them. Some days, I had to remind myself that many of these men had done heinous things. There were also days when I was reminded that some of these men have faded into the system with no hope of getting out.

(click to see the photo gallery)

I saw them cry. I saw them hit themselves so hard in the head that they bled. I saw them throw their feces at the officers. I saw a world most people don’t even know exists in America.

The project portrays the daily struggle inside the walls of the unit redesigned to treat mental illness and maintain the level of security required in a prison. The photos take viewers into an institution where the criminally insane are sometimes locked up in their cells for 23 hours a day with nothing to occupy their minds but their own demons.

Jenn Ackerman

———-

Who’s Jenn Ackerman

We are really delighted to introduce you Jen Ackerman.

Jen is a photographer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She received a bachelor’s degree in social research from James Madison University, studied photography at the Danish School of Journalism and most recently, she received a master’s degree in visual communications from Ohio University.

Her focus has been on subcultures in the United States that are often misunderstood and overlooked including mental illness in prison, HIV in rural America, and families living in Appalachia.

Jen likes to work in intimate settings and bring viewers into situations and stories that rarely are told.

In 2012, she was named to PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch. Her photographs has been recognized by the Inge Morath Award, Magnum Expression Award, CENTER Project Competition, Photojournalism Competition on Human Rights, Emerging Photographer Fund, the PGB Photo Award, the Honickman First Book Prize and others. In 2009, she was published in the Communication Arts Photography Annual and named to Photolucida’s Critical Mass Top 50.

Her multimedia and video have been recognized with an honorable mention for a Webby and a Telly and two of her short films have been screened at film festivals around the country. One of her most recent projects, Trapped, was named Non-Traditional Photojournalism Publishing Project of the Year and the project’s short film won an Emmy