Prison Terminal: Life and Death in a Prison Hospice

Prison Terminal: Life and Death in a Prison Hospice is a documentary by an independent filmmaker named Edgar. Edgar is a "fly on the wall" cameraman, meaning that he strictly observes. This is an observational documentary about a prison-based hospice program in Iowa. Edgar's aim was to follow a terminally ill prisoner and show his life in a hospice until his death. In order to do this, Edgar had to spend some time getting to know the prisoners, medical staff members, and correctional officers in order to gain their trust so that they would be somewhat comfortable with him having a camera lens directly in their faces.

This documentary brings about a highly controversial subject matter. Exactly how far should we go to take care of inmates? Many law-abiding citizens cannot afford health insurance. So how far do we go to pay for an inmate's health? In trying to show all the benefits of a prison-based hospice, Edgar is arguing that prison-based hospices are a good program to have.


I think Edgar makes his argument strong by choosing to follow Jack. Jack is an infirmary patient who got sentenced to life in prison after killing his son's drug dealer who caused his son to hang himself. Overall, Jack seems like a fairly nice guy who cared a lot for his son. He is not scary and does not seem mean or violent. He just wanted to make a criminal pay for the death that he caused.

The prison-based hospice benefits more than just the dying prisoners. Healthy prisoners can choose to be hospice volunteers. One of the volunteers said that he wished he could have done something like this outside of jail because he might have stayed out of trouble. By volunteering, the prisoners build character since they are helping care for other people.

Utilizing cinema verite style of documentary is very effective because viewers are able to formulate their own opinion and analyse what is happening.