At what point does prison stop feeling like a punishment but instead a community? The portrayal of prison life in various different movies suggest that at some point the inmates start to enjoy their time rather then count down the days till “freedom”. In the award winning film, Shawshank Redemption, we step into the lives of a few prisoners. One prisoner particularly sparked my interest throughout the film, Brooks Hatlen. Brooks served his sentence in Shawshank State Prison from 1905 to 1954. Throughout this time he assisted as the librarian of the prison, an important job. At age 72, Brooks finally leaves the prison and enters the real world. He doesn’t know how to respond to the new world he entered and lost his meaning in life. He committed suicide soon after. The idea that prison parallels a community makes sense for those with a long sentence, but how long does it take for this switch to happen?

The main character in the movie The Longest Yard, Paul Crew, sheds a light on that question. The ex football superstar finds himself in prison with a warden who will stop at nothing to use Crewe for his football expertise in order to help his team of Guards. Crewe suggests a “tune up game” for the players to build their confidence before their first real game. The Warden forces Crewe to create a team of prisoner to play the guards for this “tune up game”. The prisoners, with more to lose, buckle down and form a team with heart and talent. The guard team loses to the inmates and Crewe finds his true place in the world. This took Crewe less then a football season to find out that the only place he truly felt important was when he lived a life behind bars.

The movie Gridiron Gang relates very similarly to The Longest Yard, following the football team of juvenile boys who learn to build character, trust, and friendship from the game. The significance truly showed when the teammates forgot about their gang rivalry and hatred for one other. When analyzing prison, most tend to focus on escaping or the violence opposed to looking at how strangers form a community.

One might look at the movie Holes for a younger but still relevant example for this theory. The boys sent away to a juvenile camp come together against the Warden and Guards. The camp forced these boys to dig holes each day out in the hot sun, bringing them together as a family. The difference between this story and the others is the ending. Due to the camp shutting down, all the boys release and still remain friends. In the other movies the inmates remain in prison but change how they view it. The prison changed from a place they couldn’t escape, to a part of them.

Cool Hand Luke, an exception to this theory, shows the life of a mellow man who went to jail for drunkenly taking the tops off of parking meters. He earns the respect and friendship of this prison peers but refuses to accept life in prison. Time after time he attempts to escape, each time a worse punishment following. Finally he escapes one last time and is shot in the head. Instead of serving his short sentence and making a community with the friends he made, he decides to attempt to escape. Luke’s individualistic personality never paired well with prison resulting in his ability to accept his fate. Instead of the sad ending, Luke might have “found his true place in the world” like the main character of the other movies, resulting in a happy ending. I appreciate the realistic view of Cool Hand Luke and the idea that although some find a community in prison, others do not. Would I find a community in prison and feel as if I finally found my place in the world? Maybe, maybe not, but I very much enjoy seeing both sides of the spectrum.

This paper only understands the confinement and lifestyle of prison based off of media and movies in relation. I wonder how closely those movies resemble real prison life and if communities actually form like they do in movies. A friend who spent time in a state prison once told me that to survive everyone joins a gang. Everyone in the gang preforms a specific function, even down to needing a person to recruit for the gang. I feel that these gangs depict the communities that movies attempt to show.

Do you feel as if you could endure prison life and find a community? Would you join a gang in order to survive?