Interview: It’s Criminal director, Signe Taylor, stands up for underprivileged women

We recently had the chance to talk with extremely talented director Signe Taylor, whose documentary It’s Criminal takes on the criminal justice system full force with regard to how we are handling trauma, addiction, and brokenness in The United States, especially with regard to female inmates.

The documentary follows a class at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in which students rehearse and put on a play alongside women being held in a correctional facility. Over a ten week period, the clash of cultures and differences, which initially appeared to be too much to overcome, eclipsed in a theatrical performance that showcased bonding, friendship and a unity that changed participants’ lives, and perspectives, forever.

During the course of this journey, we get to know the women in our jail system on a level never before brought to light, in our opinion. And the horrific experiences these women went through prior to landing in the criminal justice system should lead us to consider — are we doing the best we can for them? Or are we just throwing them to the curb?

It’s Criminal is set to air June 9, 2018, at 9:00 p.m ET/PT on Fuse. 

Here are Signe Taylor’s thoughts.

HR: Broken homes and painful pasts in the form of rape, abusive relationships, [and] difficult childhoods — those were the stories that we heard here among the inmates. And … statistically, [that] leads to drugs, which many would consider to be the coping mechanism to deal with those situations. And yet, here we find them in prison. Do you think that people should be incarcerated for these situations?

Signe Taylor: No, no I really don’t. … Trauma from childhood … can lead to drugs. … And jail has become where we house people with addiction issues. And very very very very few of them (the jails) actually have programming to help the women change. … So then the women end up going to jail a couple times. … It’s a system that’s so dysfunctional. And the women get out and there’s no housing, they now have a felony conviction — if their lives were difficult before, they’re quasi-impossible [now]. … I just feel like we’ve set ourselves up with this crazy system in this country.

HR: And it’s just so sad because you get out and you’ve got this record, like, for the rest of your life, unless you’re [lucky enough] to get it removed — and that’s super rare.

Taylor: Yeah! — yeah and then you’ve got a box to check of a felony conviction. … I hope, after the broadcast, maybe somebody [will think], oh maybe I shouldn’t decide that everybody who’s a convicted felon would not be a good worker. …

HR: It seems like one of your main messages throughout this is that we need to level the playing field? Seeing as a particular woman … in the movie — she hadn’t been convicted, but she couldn’t pay for bond. So there she is, guilty until proven innocent. And in addition to that scenario, there’s the scenario where — if you don’t have money to hire a good lawyer — your chances are a lot slimmer of winning your [case]. And that’s just sad, and it is unfair. We use the word “unfair” a lot, but that is, by definition, unfair. … Do you have any ideas of how the playing field could be leveled?

Taylor: Yeah, there’s bail funds, [as a starting point]. … I believe, in New York, and there’s one that was started in Massachusetts. And I think that those are one key, very practical way that you can level the playing field. Because when you have access to bail, it means you don’t have to serve time for a crime that you may or may not have committed. … And it also takes away the incentive to plead guilty. Because as [one of the incarcerated women] said in the film — she said [most] of the people in that jail were not convicted, but they pled guilty.

HR: Right, that was a big mic drop moment.

Taylor: Yeah … [people reason] — I don’t have money for bail; my life is in crisis, and then it would take probably two years to have a case come to trial. You’d spend all that time in jail. And especially as a mother, that’s impossible; you can’t do that. So you plead to the least charge that you can get your court-appointed attorney to argue for (a plea bargain). … If they had bail, then they wouldn’t be forced into pleading guilty.

HR: Wow. You’re right. And that’s not something people think about donating to — like “oh I’m gonna donate to this.” There’s so many other things, you think. But it is important.

Taylor: Yeah … [bail is] a really strange thing in our justice system. I know why it’s there, and in some ways it makes sense, but in other ways, it creates this immense inequality. And I guess the other one would be — I mean there’s huge societal things, … but once you hit the court system, there’s specific things that we could change … [by taking away] some of the immense inequalities between, let’s say, a Dartmouth student who’s caught with cocaine, and a single mom with a previous felony conviction.

Their treatment should not be [different to the extent] that one ends up with a second felony conviction and a yearlong sentence, and the other one gets a misdemeanor and community service. I understand that you can have some gradation in sentencing, but when it reaches that level … I think everybody in the U.S. justice system needs to step back and say — there’s something not working here.

HR: Right, that’s so true. … [So as a mother yourself], what was it like for you filming this documentary [knowing that] these women, [some of them], have children? …

Taylor: It was pretty intense. So, ya know, I’m filming, in this jail, and we’re going [there] — I think by the end, we were going five days a week. In the beginning, it was three days a week because we had two days at Dartmouth. And I would come home at the end of the day, and my kids were young … at that time. But I’d have to kinda put the whole day [aside] — like I couldn’t think about it. I just kind of had to be present and just be happy and be like a [normal] mom in this little, beautiful community that we live in.

HR: Was it hard to not to bring them home with you [mentally]?

Taylor: It was hard not to bring them home with me, and then it was also so hard to think about the women who were trying to parent through phone calls. …

HR: I can’t imagine.

Taylor: Yeah! I couldn’t imagine.

HR: What was your biggest challenge as a director, in any regard, with filming this documentary?

Taylor: … The hardest part was probably finding the funding to make it all happen. It’s really, really hard to make a film. And it took a long time to get it done and I think that’s probably, overall, the hardest challenge.

HR: How long did it take?

Taylor: It took about seven years.

HR: Wow!

Taylor: I know. I wasn’t working on it that whole time, but, ya know, we shot and then I needed to get funds to edit and that took a while, and it’s just very hard to work Indie film-making if you’re doing these passion projects. It’s a hard row to hoe. It takes a while for that reason.

HR: Well I guess, in that regard, I gotta say thank you again for sticking with it because this is a beautiful thing that needed to be put out there.

Taylor: Oh, thank you so much.

HR: Yeah. So there’s a lot of deep, profound, breathtaking moments even throughout this documentary. … How did you manage to create an environment, while you’re filming, where people were at ease to be themselves?

Taylor: We filmed as a ten-week class, and we filmed every day for ten weeks. Anytime the women were with Patty, we were there. Anytime the women and students were together, we were there. Anytime the students were at Dartmouth in the classroom we were there, ya know. We were also given access to the jail from, I believe it was eight in the morning until ten o’clock at night.

We were also just hanging out with the women when they were in their cells — when they were having meals. And we also hung out at Dartmouth with the students as they were studying — as they were eating. So we were very omnipresent. And I think that in the beginning, people are very self-conscious having a camera. … But I think because we were always there, people just got used to us. And we also had two hundred and fifty hours [of filming].

HR: So, you’re going to open a lot of eyes through this documentary.

Taylor: Oh I hope so.

HR: You will. Do you feel that the way to create a more understanding society is to give a voice to the incarcerated? To allow them to tell their stories?

Taylor: One hundred percent — I think nobody can advocate for an incarcerated person like an incarcerated person because they can share their stories. And I just feel like as soon as you start learning these stories and really thinking about the system, then it becomes clear how much needs to change. And yeah, I’m really hoping that this opens eyes.

I love that we are partnering with #cut50, the dignity campaign. Van Jones started an organization called #cut50 — they’re trying to cut incarceration rates in The United States by fifty percent. And they specifically have a campaign for Dignity for Incarcerated Women. And I think there’s gonna be [info about it at the bottom of the screen] during the film so that if people want to get involved to change the circumstances of incarcerated women, there’ll be ways. … There’s gonna be specific actions you can take to make changes. …

… In some ways, this time can be politically challenging with the administration. But with the movements that are happening now like #MeToo and the high school students [rallying against]  gun violence — I’m like, this is a kind of amazing time, and maybe the film will add some fuel to the fire for the Dignity for Incarcerated Women campaign.

HR: Definitely. I mean, you cannot see what you put on camera and not be moved. … It has to move you — it has to move you to realize these are women have faced pain that perhaps none of us can even imagine. And yet they are the ones that we’ve thrown out, like the girl Georgia says (one of the college students in the documentary). I mean, it’s such a good thing that you’ve done here. And to that end, near the end of the documentary, there was such a precious moment between [one of the incarcerated women] and her father. When he came to the play, he just wrapped his arms around her and gave her a big bear hug and she said, “I love you,” and he said, “I love you too honey.” … And it’s so beautiful. Do you think people are gonna see that we need to love them?

Taylor: Yeah I sure hope so — I sure hope so. I’m glad that’s what you got out of it. It’s encouraging and hope-giving. So Yeah, I mean, I hope so. And then I hope that then if they read about incarceration issues that … they sort of see these women, who are full, beautiful, strong women who have made some mistakes, who have had trauma [in a more understanding light] –they’re not bad people.

HR: Well thank you again … and I wish you the absolute best in the future.

Next: Makenna James talks American Woman and Harvard University

It’s Criminal is set to air June 9, 2018, at 9:00 p.m ET/PT on Fuse.