“Outcasts” Tells Why The US Prison System is Broken, But Few Are Listening

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are currently 2.3 million people incarcerated in prisons and jails across America—that’s more than any other country in the world. Once released, most former offenders return to prison within three years.

To discover why the US criminal justice system is broken, Stephen Newton, a Tennessee-based filmmaker, traveled from Nashville to Washington DC interviewing nearly 100 individuals along the way, including judges, attorneys, law makers and enforcers, educators, psychologists, clergy and offenders. The result was his feature-length documentary “Outcasts: Surviving the Culture of Rejection.” The film premiered in 2014, and then aired on Knoxville’s East Tennessee PBS twice in prime time, made the rounds of several film festivals, and is available for free online viewing at cultureofrejection.org, yet, four years later, little has been done to initiate criminal justice reform. 

Thanks to books like Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” the national dialog for prison reform is being listened to and debated, but no one seems to talk about the real problem—that corporations are making millions from the  monetization of the prison system from the top down. The film claims America’s Fortune 500 companies make big profits and provide little incentive to rehabilitate offenders, but rather make it nearly impossible for them to survive once they leave jail or prison, forcing them back. Good business?

Additionally, “Outcasts” tells the incredible story of US incarceration from the establishment of the first penitentiary in Philadelphia to the modern day prison-industrial complex and its often grim consequences for lives and communities broken apart by the criminal justice system. 

Newton doesn’t see things changing anytime soon. “How do you fix the prison system,” he asks, “when the current one is making so much money for corporations, and ultimately their stockholders?”

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Contact Information

Stephen Newton

Filmmaker

RAZAR Films

(1) (423) 863-8260

snewton@razar.com