No More Prisons

New York City's Correction Department spent an average of nearly $59,000 per inmate in the 2003 fiscal year. But when all city expenses are factored in - insurance and pension benefits for correction staff, for instance, as well as more than $150 million for jail medical care - the yearly per-inmate cost is closer to $100,000, according to the city's Independent Budget Office.

Either way, the expense of jailing people in the city is especially great, Bloomberg administration officials acknowledge - far more, for instance, than it is in other big cities.

In January 2003, Republican Governor George Ryan granted blanket clemency to all 167 people on death row in Illinois, commuting their sentences to life without parole. With astounding access to special clemency hearings, the death row prisoners, exonerated men and Governor Ryan himself, directors Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson bring us directly into the emotional and legal storm surrounding Ryan’s extraordinary decision.

Deadline premiered at Sundance last week. The Chicago Tribue notes George Ryan's participation in the screenings of the film:

The Sundance Film Festival may be flush with charismatic yet troubled movie heroes, but only one is a gruff 69-year-old Republican Illinois ex-governor under federal indictment.

Yes, George Ryan is doing Sundance.

Ryan, who appeared at events Friday and Sunday, is the lead character/star of "Deadline," one of 16 feature-length documentaries in competition at this pre-eminent festival for American independent film. Directed by Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson, the movie chronicles the three months from the ex-governor's call for a death penalty moratorium to his declaration of blanket clemency for 167 Death Row inmates just days before he left office last January.

(u/p: rwalks/rwalks)