The Prison in Popular Culture
The prison is known for three high-profile professional boxers who were at one time incarcerated there. Former middleweight contender Rubin Carter, freed in 1985 after being sentenced to two consecutive life terms, was featured in the 1975 Bob Dylan song "Hurricane" and the 1999 film The Hurricane. Dwight Muhammad Qawi became a two-time world champion after leaving Rahway. A contemporary of Qawi, James Scott, was a title contender of the same era who fought many times inside the prison itself, including a fight against Qawi in 1981.
The prison served as the filming location for the 1978 Academy Award winning documentary Scared Straight! The prison is also the birthplace of the Lifers' Group, in which prison inmates participate in a government-sponsored hip hop music program, recording such songs as "The Real Deal" and "Belly of the Beast" to discourage children from becoming criminals. It released an album and EP on the Walt Disney Company's Hollywood Records during the 1990s.
The prison's distinctive architecture, with its large dome and imposing metal gates, has appeared in many films including Lock Up, Crazy Joe, Rounders, Malcolm X, He Got Game, The Hurricane, and Ocean's Eleven.
Read more about this topic: East Jersey State Prison
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, prison, popular and/or culture:
“The lowest form of popular culture—lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives—has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.”
—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)
“They are sworn enemies of lyric poetry.
In prison they accompany the jailer,
Enter cells to hear confessions.
Their short-end comes down
When you least expect it.”
—Charles Simic (b. 1938)
“One knows so well the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox—the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“... good and evil appear to be joined in every culture at the spine.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)