Margaret Breslau has spent the last 20 years running the Coalition for Justice— a non-profit that’s made her a strong advocate for prisoners in Virginia. On average she answers about 400 letters and e-mails from inmates each month. And that’s not all.
“This week I put my newsletter out – it’s a newsletter that goes to 2,600 people in jails and prisons. It hits every state prison, and I started that because I realized that there was so much misinformation in prison – so that’s our 96th issue,” she says.
If inmates are attacked, robbed, deprived of food or medical care, Breslau gets on the phone or writes a letter.
“You know a lot of people I can’t really do anything," Breslau laments, "but just for them to write and to hear back is meaningful.”
A faculty member at Virginia Tech knew about her work and shared contact information with a filmmaker who teaches at the University of California Merced. After they met, Yehuda Sharim began calling her the Amazing Margaret.
“A lot of us can talk, but Margaret is doing,” he explains.
They began to correspond by e-mail and to talk by phone – brainstorming ideas for Sharim’s next documentary project. Breslau told him about a man who’s been locked up for more than 32 years. His family is no longer in touch, he’s made to sleep in a top bunk – at risk for dangerous falls. He stands for hours in pill lines to treat a heart condition, and he owns almost nothing.
“He’d had this coffee cup since 1995," Breslau explains. "I can’t tell you how hard that is, between transfers, theft, cell shakedowns, you can’t hang onto much, but he’s had it, and then he said in his most recent move staff saw the coffee cup, and they said it’s too thick. They said it could be used as a weapon, and they took it away.”
Sharim was struck by that story, but there was no way to get a camera into the prison where its author lives. Instead, he and Breslau shared the man’s letters with Richmond activist Arthur Burton who spoke and sang the prisoner’s words.
“I didn’t break any rules. Thirty-two years, 10 months. I’ve paid my dues, so why’d you take my coffee cup, the one I’ve had since ’95? You’re telling me you thought the mug’s too thick. How the hell you think I kept the coffee hot?”
Filmmaker Sharim hopes this work will help people to understand how brutal prisons can be.
“It’s horror, and it’s violence, it’s gangs, and it’s eating food that is not for human consumption.”
And Breslau says it’s especially hard for the elderly.
“Older people are always extremely fearful, because they are targets for younger people. People who have disabilities and are older are vulnerable in prison.”
That’s important, because older adults are the fastest growing demographic in Virginia prisons. Those over fifty account for about a third of all inmates.
This film is the first of three. A second looks at the struggles of families who have loved ones behind bars and a third will feature female prisoners. Sharim and Breslau will be on hand for a reception after the movie – Where’s My Coffee Cup – to be shown at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond on April 18th. Doors open at 6:15.
You can view the film's trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVEvgdmIAaU
