Changing Perceptions of Prisons and Policing

Inside Story visits Pennsylvania’s Eastern State Penitentiary for a haunted Halloween tour — an event that’s part of a larger debate on prison tourism and how administrators portray the facilities and the people living in them.

Host Lawrence Bartley sits down with two Baltimore police detectives — Andre “Dre” Severino and Ralph “H” Horton, hosts of The Silverback Chronicles podcast — about their efforts to change policing perceptions and rise above old-school culture.

We travel to Ohio to spend time with Tyra Patterson, a policymaker and teacher who served 23 years of a 43-to-life sentence. She has maintained her innocence and continues to fight for criminal justice reforms and her own exoneration.

Can prison conditions improve? Bartley shares his experience of collaborative efforts with corrections staff.

• Rethinking Prison Tourism