gilkey

NPR published a smart interactive piece, with a succinct narrative thread, about the release of prisoners from Huntsville Penitentiary. Words by by John Burnett and photos by David Gilkey.

“For released Texas prisoners, the first step toward the future is into an old Greyhound station,” opens the NPR feature The Bus Station. Here’s the accompanying radio story.

Sometimes you don’t need to get inside of a prison to reveal its nature. The bus station is a mere 3 minutes from the prison and it’s where all released prisoners head to cash their checks and get out of the town. They walk with red mesh potato sacks full of belongings.

I applauded and featured Jacobia Dahm’s work on prison visiting buses and I applaud Gilkey’s work her on focusing on those trying to move away from, not toward, prison complexes.

Go see the story. It is humanising and it proves prisons are closer than we care to consider.

Slick presentations like this don’t happen in a vacuum. Teams are involved. Design was by Wes Lindamood and Tyler Fisher and web-editing by Becky Lettenberger and Claire O’Neill

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