Twain and the Elmira Correctional Facility

Elmira, NY October 19, 2011

Follow our tour of the Elmira Correctional Facility with Superintendent Paul Chappius and Deputy Superintendent Steve Wenderlich. During his Elmira years, Twain tested his lectures on prisoners.

Video by Dan

About Dan Tham

Dan Q. Tham (b. Dec. 4, 1990), was born and raised in Salt Lake City by Kim Hoa Nguyen and Hoa Tram, immigrants who fled Vietnam by boat shortly after the Vietnam War ended. At Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism Dan, a junior, has served as video editor of the Daily Northwestern and co-directed a short documentary about a Chicago woman who has successfully made living with AIDS compatible with being a sassy diva. Dan spent this summer interning at the Berlin broadcast station ALEX and working in Dharamsala, India, on a documentary about the future of Tibet. View all posts by Dan Tham >>

2 thoughts on “Twain and the Elmira Correctional Facility”

Skittles35 on October 20, 2011 at 10:14 pm said:

The guards at Elmira are vicious and cruel. My husband was at that prison for 15 years. They were just investigated for sexual battery last year among the guards abusing the inmates. Of course they cover it up by calling it aggressive searching for contraband. I think prolong holding of someones genitalia is beyond searching. I’ve never met not one courteous correctional officer. I’ve never been arrested. I pay my taxes. Yet I;m treated like scum because I refuse to abandon my loved one. The guards don’t stop to chat and saves lives. The stop to terrorize and abuse. Just look at the beginning of this video when he’s yanking down a sheet. All he has to do is treat them they way they would like to be treated. Hey please remove the sheet it’s not allowed. People give respect when they get it. If you came to my home and yanked something off my wall. Well I would not be pleasant to you. This is prison where they are to be rehabilitated. Not treated like animals. But of course if they did that they would not need their over 50 prisons. They want the prisoners to stay so they have job security !
Mrs. Prison Worker on December 1, 2011 at 5:57 pm said:

He isn’t supposed to have a sheet hanging on his bars anyway and he knows that! Don’t believe all of the lines of crap that they like to spoon feed you. If they follow the rules and treat others with respect that is exactly the way they are treated.