Picture 100 Native Hawaiian men chanting and dancing traditional prayers in the middle of a prison yard in the middle of the Southwest desert.
That stark image is what motivated Hawaiian filmmaker Ciara Lacy to make the documentary " Out of State."
Since 1995, the state of Hawaii has shipped male prisoners to for-profit prisons on the mainland to alleviate overcrowding. The Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, was built specifically for that purpose, and Lacy’s film goes behind the scenes there, as many of those native Hawaiian men learn about their culture for the first time.
The Show spoke with her more about it and why the state of Hawaii started doing this in the first place.
