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“We have the largest prison population on the planet and it’s not because Americans are uniquely evil. It’s because we’ve got this really barbaric system in place and we need to take a look at it,” Cooke told THR.
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00:04Hi, this is Mariah Gullow from The Hollywood Reporter and I'm in studio today with Matthew
00:08Cook and David Arquette. Thank you for being here guys. So Matthew, you're the writer and
00:14director of Survivor's Guide to Prison. I think so. And David Arquette, you're the producer along
00:19with your wife. That's what they do. Yes, my wife especially. I wanted to ask you guys a question
00:25first and foremost. One of the facts that I learned in this documentary was that the average
00:31American, because of all the laws on the book, might commit up to three felonies a day. Can
00:37you take me through a three felony day? Yeah. I mean, look, here's the thing. There is such
00:46a wide kind of array of possibility interpretation of the law that a police officer could essentially
00:54arrest you for resisting arrest. I mean, if there's not circular logic there, I don't
00:59know where you might find it. And so the point about the Wall Street Journal article is that
01:05essentially we're all in jeopardy all the time. And the idea that prison is the natural response
01:13to harm and conflict makes no sense. And I mean, have you noticed any interesting statistics
01:19or trends? I mean, the documentary touches on so many things. I mean, there's so many
01:23issues economically, socially, there's the privatization of prisons, there's racism within
01:30the country, cultural desire to get the bad guy, which is kind of an ingrained cultural thing
01:37in our country. In any country. Yeah, absolutely. But did you see any interesting trends between
01:44like rural and urban? Or like, are you more likely to get caught in the prison system if
01:49you're living in an urban area versus a rural area? You know, I don't know off the top of
01:54my head, the proportions on that. If you are, I can tell you a little bit more about kind
01:59of the drug markets. And if you, if you operate in an open market, you're more like, in other
02:03words, out on the street, then you're more likely to get picked up than if you work, you
02:07know, in drugs in a, if you sell drugs in a closed market. There are communities and areas
02:11where the police routinely go in over and over again. And once you've been stopped and
02:15then you, you, you know, you're in suspicion or you're, you're suspected of being a member
02:19of a gang and so forth and so on. There are plenty of urban areas which are just invaded
02:24constantly by law enforcement. And so there's this terrible relationship between a lot of
02:27communities, inner city communities and law enforcement. And the feeling is that law enforcement
02:31isn't there to serve and protect. They're there to fee and fine and arrest and prosecute.
02:35Um, you know, so it's a real problem. And 30% of our population is made up of people
02:41of color, but 60% of our prison population is made up of people of color. So it's disproportionate.
02:49Right. And there's also a disproportionate amount of Americans in prison. There are other countries
02:54who have a way larger population than us, but they have less of a prison population.
02:58Sure. Like China, like Russia and so forth. We have a larger prison population than both
03:02of those countries. We have the largest prison population on the planet. And it's not because
03:07Americans are somehow uniquely evil and criminal and therefore more Americans are therefore
03:11in prison. It's because we've kind of got this really barbaric system in place and we need
03:16to take a look at it. I also noticed that it said that the, we have the largest and the
03:21fastest growing female prison population. Yeah. One third of the world's imprisoned females
03:29are in America. You know, when we look at all these other countries where women's rights
03:34are, you know, not as progressive as ours and we still, uh, lock them up more than anywhere.
03:42Right. And, uh, do you have a, like a personal story that you can tell that kind of got you
03:48on this path of creating this documentary? Um, there, but for the grace of God go I. I mean,
03:55when I was a kid I did a bunch of illegal stuff. I made fake IDs for money. I was,
03:59I don't want
04:00to over dramatize it and say I was homeless, but I like couch surfed for a couple of semesters.
04:06I didn't have a place to live. And so I made fake IDs to make a living. Allegedly. Allegedly,
04:12you know, I may have done that or may have someone looked like me. But anyway, the, the,
04:17the point is that I didn't go to prison and I didn't go to prison because, um, I was treated
04:21differently by law enforcement and I saw that. And so that made me slightly aware of it.
04:27I, uh, got, had the opportunity to teach acting class in San Quentin for two days. And that
04:34was a really eyeopening experience just to see these people and talk to them about their
04:38story and what, how they ended up there. A lot of the time every, almost everyone I talked
04:43to was a victim of abuse. So they're, they're going through all this pain and, and, and they've
04:49built up this sort of attitude toward life where I'm going to make sure I get them before they get
04:54me, which just led them to, you know, life of crime or whatever. And it's funny when you say that,
05:01that's, that's our response in the criminal justice system. It's like, we're going to get
05:05them before they get me. Like we're, we're behaving exactly the same as, as those we supposed to
05:10criticize or want to help. And in terms of the women, the women, the statistics of women in prison
05:15is really abominable. The majority of women who are in prison, we have the most women in prison
05:19than any other country. And they're mostly mothers. Yeah. 80% of the women in prison are mothers.
05:26Wow. Wow. And there's 2.7 million children that have a parent in prison. So it's totally destroying
05:33our whole family dynamic as well. Right. I mean, if we care about victims of crime, if we want victims
05:38of crime to heal, to be able to overcome whatever they, that befell them, if we want to help people
05:44and save them from a life of crime, if we want to make society more harmonious and just, then we
05:50use a completely different system than the prison model. And that's what we're hoping people realize
05:54when they watch this film is they go, wow, we're taking a bad situation and we're making things
05:58worse. This is not police bashing or right politics or left politics. This is just about common sense
06:06and about really caring for each other and taking care of one another. You touch on so many different
06:10topics in the documentary. But is there something that stood out like a recommendation? Because
06:15it's in the form of recommendations on if you get caught in this situation, if you confront a police
06:21officer, if you find yourself being arrested, here are the things you can do to get through it.
06:28What's the recommendation that really stood out to you? Like what has really stayed in your brain?
06:33Well, I mean, it all unfortunately stays in my brain. But I would say the one thing that sticks
06:40there the most is the big picture. How do we solve prison? How do we survive prison as a society?
06:46And how we survive it is we no longer use it as the be all and end all tool for
06:52conflict resolution.
06:54Right.
06:55Yeah. Also the plea, like we don't have a court system in this country. We have a plea bargain
07:02system. Most cases are settled through plea bargains. So, you know, people who have money have a
07:09greater chance of not going to jail if they can afford a great attorney, if they can make bail.
07:13You know, people without money don't have as good a chance. They'll most likely not be able to make
07:19but bail. They'll go from, you know, county jail into the court in a jumpsuit, in shackles. And
07:25their chances are, I think there's like a third, one third more of a chance.
07:32Yeah, being incarcerated. Just that you're more likely if you don't have money, everything's
07:37stacked against you. You're wearing that orange jumpsuit and then they see you in that way.
07:41And you might sit in prison for a year before you get a trial. So you might be innocent of
07:46this
07:46crime. Sitting in jail. Just, you know, and then all the horrors that you experience while in there.
07:54Yeah.
07:54It's really frightening.
07:55Yeah. How do we make real changes to the prison system in a world where facts and compassion
08:04and individual rights are being increasingly ignored?
08:08Legislation. It's the real way we change is by voting. We need people to vote in general.
08:13Everyone should just get out and vote. And there's a lot of, we do a lot of work with Cut
08:1950,
08:20Van Jones Company. And if you go to their website or arc.org, they'll have a lot of the upcoming
08:28legislation, state by state, that's coming up that you can vote on the next time you go to the polls.
08:33There are so many incredible organizations. The ones David just talked about are really,
08:38really amazing. And they just need our support and more support and more awareness that these
08:43people are out there and that they're the ones with the answers.
08:46And also, I mean, are you both Californians? Yeah. So, you know, we're living in a place that has,
08:54you know, a giant prison system, a huge population. We're also living in the place where the entertainment
09:00business is, like, you know, the dream factory. Do you think that Hollywood has a responsibility
09:06to start changing the culture?
09:09We're all in this together any way you slice it. And the fact is that independent films will do better
09:14when audiences buy independent movies. If audiences out there want to support things other than big,
09:22giant action franchises, they got to go to the movie theater. They got to go on Netflix. They
09:26got to go on Crackle. They got to go on all the places and get those independent movies. And then
09:30we'll be able to make more of them. Hollywood is just a little city that's owned and operated by
09:35five giant media corporations that control 90% of what we consume. So, like, you know, to say
09:40Hollywood has a responsibility. Hey, we would love to do more movies, more TV shows, more things about
09:45topics that matter. You know, we just need audiences that want to get them and distributors that want
09:51to distribute. But if you're an actor, please don't speak out or say anything. Have an opinion about
09:57anything, especially politics. Yeah, just stick to acting. Just, yeah. I mean, it is like an amazing
10:04point that, like, you know, a lot of times the culture has to shift before people start voting
10:10towards legislative action. Yes. And, you know, there's the possibility of the culture shifting
10:17now more than ever because we're at this, like, tipping point. People are very divided right now.
10:22What can people do if they feel touched by this particular topic? Oh, my God. So many things. I
10:30mean, they could write a letter to someone who's inside and just be a friend. They could, as David
10:36said, go to ARC.org, anti-recidivism coalition.org. They could cut 50 Van Jones organization and see
10:42what kind of legislation they can help. There's Sankofa, the Belafonte organization. Gina Belafonte
10:48is one of our awesome producing partners. So there's like... There's Hudson Link on the East Coast
10:53that brings education into prisons. And they're expanding one by one, just trying to get education.
11:01I mean, whatever. You could volunteer. There's AA groups that go in and speak specifically to
11:06prisoners. There's people that donate their time as educators to go in there, teach them different
11:11things. You could do, you know, whatever. Volunteering in a community level is great. And there's
11:17companies like Homeboy Industries that take it upon themselves to hire people who've been in prison
11:24and, you know, give them a job. And, you know, that's the main thing. Job, education, some kind
11:31of hope that they're, you know... There's a lot of people that also do things when people
11:35are coming out to sort of re-acclimate into the real world. There are greater organizations
11:41that are doing that as well.
11:42Mm-hmm. And, you know, somebody who has been caught in the system and is coming out of jail,
11:48like you've mentioned a couple of things already, and the documentary touches on it a lot. But,
11:52you know, one piece of advice that you want to give to somebody who, you know, might watch
11:56your documentary and is leaving prison, you know, a piece of advice for them on how to
12:01beat that recidivism rate.
12:03Okay. Well, you know, go call the Rescue Life Foundation if you're in Los Angeles or, you
12:09know, Second Call or, you know, Skip Townsend's organization here. There's a lot of people
12:15who we want to help, and they want to help and reach out, and you're not alone. And this
12:20is a lot. Coming out of prison is a lot. It's scary. It's terrifying. And reach out
12:25for help. There are some organizations to do that. And go to Facebook.com slash Survivors
12:30Guide to Prison and reach out there. And it's just us, you know, we're volunteering and there
12:35are a bunch of people there who will try to be of service.
12:39Mm-hmm. Great. And last question, something I ask all documentary filmmakers. If you could
12:44hand deliver this to one person, hand deliver your movie, who would it go to?
12:48Thank you. Wow. That's a great, great question. The Supreme Court.
12:58Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. David, do you have a…
13:02Well, me?
13:05Do you want to give this to anybody?
13:07Uh, just like a college tour.
13:10Mm. Nice. All right. Well, Matthew Cook, David Arquette, thank you so much. The movie
13:16is Survivor's Guide to Prison. Available on iTunes. Download it right now. Make all your
13:21friends download it. Download it again. Digitally. It's available everywhere. So if
13:24you have DirecTV, you can download a VOD there or Comcast, anything.
13:29Amazon. Yeah. Great. Thank you.
13:32Thank you. Thanks.
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