Recently the cable television channel VH1 aired the first of an eight-part documentary called "Music Behind Bars." The series is an unsentimental look at the ways in which prisoners make music in an environment that often crushes the spirit.
The first installment of the documentary series featured a band called Dark Mischief. The heavy-metal band was drawn from the ranks of hard-timers at the State Correctional Institution-Graterford in Montgomery County outside of Philadelphia. Two members of Dark Mischief are doing time for murder -- one for the killing of two Lehigh University students -- but they aren't on death row.
Some families of crime victims vehemently complained to VH1 executives that killers are being glamorized and given a platform to cause more pain. Some want the series to be aborted because the thought of prisoners being "rewarded" with a reality music show is too galling for them to bear.
That request, which VH1 has refused, might be reasonable if television exposure were somehow ennobling. But the incarcerated head-bangers in "Music Behind Bars" are anything but glamorous. The prisoners' chief claim to fame is moral failure. An extended life behind bars is hardly the stuff to attract groupies or impressionable kids.
It isn't surprising, however, that the victims' families also resent the idea of prisoners being allowed even a moment of creative expression. "Instead of singing and dancing, perhaps they should spend more of their time thinking about what they've done," said the mother of one of the victims of a band member. That's a wholly understandable reaction from a crime victim's loved one, but prison authorities can't abdicate the management of their institutions to outsiders.
The state can be sensitive to victims without denying prisoners the opportunities for artistic expression. Some families appealed to Gov. Schweiker to install safeguards in the system so no one is taken by surprise should a prisoner unexpectedly "show up" on television. In the future, Pennsylvania's Office of the Victim Advocate must be consulted whenever reporters turn up at one of the state's prisons to do a story. That is a reasonable compromise as long as prisoners aren't denied access to musical recreation.
In the 1960s, Johnny Cash used to perform before enthusiastic crowds in prison. The album that came out of that tour "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison" remains wildly popular to this day. It's hard to see a moral difference between an entertainer coming in and prisoners entertaining themselves. Either way, it's music behind bars.
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