An hour-long program, shot over five days inside San Francisco Jail No. 3, offers a rare tour inside the city\u2019s largest jail. The guide: Sheriff Paul Miyamoto and his deputies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aired August 17th on the Discovery Channel among shows like \u201cNaked and Afraid\u201d and \u201cDeadliest Catch,\u201d the \u201c120 Hours Behind Bars\u201d series, produced by Lucky 8, lives somewhere between documentary and reality TV.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The series bills itself as \u201can unfiltered look inside the toughest U.S. jails\u201d and was filmed over five days earlier this summer with permission from the San Francisco Sheriff\u2019s Office. Tara Moriarity, spokesperson for the sheriff\u2019s office, wrote that \u201c120 Hours Behind Bars gave the public a valuable and unusually transparent look inside our operations.\u201d She said the sheriff\u2019s office was permitted to review the episode prior to its release but that they made no editorial decisions.<\/p>\n
The public defender\u2019s office, on the other hand, questioned whether the sheriff\u2019s office\u2019s \u201czeal to manufacture positive press\u201d had impacted the filmmaking process. Still, the public defender\u2019s office commended the show for exposing \u201cthe jail\u2019s inhumane conditions, including the vast majority of more than 1,100 people confined to cramped cells for 23 hours a day with no access to sunlight or fresh air\u201d \u2014 in response, Moriarty said she \u201cstrongly disagrees with any characterization of our jails as inhumane based on the generalization of a one-hour edited television show.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what can a discerning viewer take away from 60 minutes of \u201c120 Hours\u201d?<\/p>\n
Conditions in San Francisco jails have been well documented. In the past year Mission Local detailed<\/a> reports of pervasive \u201cvomit, spit, and shit\u201d inside city jails, the sheriff\u2019s department has said it is short<\/a> at least a hundred staff and 20 women alleged they were strip-searched en masse<\/a> \u2014 and filmed \u2014 by deputies; they have since sued<\/a>. The city\u2019s civil grand jury in June reported<\/a> that jails are at a \u201cbreaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n But video is different.\u00a0 Rather than hearing about the conditions of the jail through a journalist\u2019s voice, you can hear directly from the person who is locked up \u2014 assuming they can speak freely.<\/p>\n While two of the incarcerated people interviewed were pre-selected by the sheriff\u2019s office, the majority asked to be interviewed, Moriarity wrote in a July 8 email to the public defender\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n The public defender\u2019s office responded that those included in the documentary should have been given the \u201copportunity to consult with counsel before participating in media interviews,\u201d since the interviews could have adverse effects on ongoing cases.<\/p>\n \u201cOur concern is that Lucky 8 obtained extraordinary access to interview pretrial detainees inside the San Francisco County Jail through a process that appears to have bypassed a fundamental safeguard,\u201d the public defender\u2019s office wrote to the production company that same week.<\/p>\n Lucky 8 did not respond to Mission Local\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Most scenes in the episode are told from the perspective of sheriff\u2019s deputies or narrated by an unidentified voice.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In one incident, the narrator describes the deputies\u2019 decision to release pepper spray inside a cell where someone has been locked in solitary confinement for 24 hours. Ultimately the deputies conclude that they have no other choice because the man \u2014\u00a0who one deputy says is undergoing psychosis \u2014 refuses to come to the door and be cuffed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAfter failing to comply, an inmate is forcibly removed from the safety cell following a 24-hour hold,\u201d the narrator explains, as deputies drag the man out of the cell, coughing, with his shoulder contorted behind his back.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Halfway through the episode, the focus turns to the S.F. jail\u2019s crown jewel, the \u201cAnnex\u201d \u2014 a facility only a few hundred feet away, where a smaller number of people are housed in open pods instead of cells and have access to outdoor exercise and programming, including pickleball courts<\/a> and educational opportunities.<\/p>\n