NEWS

DePaul Cristo Rey students shape documentary on criminal justice

Emilie Eaton
eeaton@enquirer.com
Letitia Bowman, an IRS employee who has a criminal record, spoke to DePaul Cristo Rey High School students in for a 10-minute documentary on the criminal justice system.

For 18-year-old Imani Vann, conducting interviews for a short 10-minute documentary on the criminal justice system was no easy task.

"At first, it was very nerve wracking," Vann said. "I had never conducted interviews before or talked to people about being in prison. I'm a very shy person."

But as time went on, Vann got used to it. She learned not to judge a book by its cover. And she realized what's needed to conduct a good interview.

Vann is part of a group of DePaul Cristo Rey High School students who recently completed shooting and editing a short 10-minute documentary on the criminal justice system and the workforce barriers that exist for individuals with criminal backgrounds.

The documentary, which features criminal justice experts and individuals with a criminal background, was published on Vimeo last month.

David Rosenthal, founder and executive director of Prairie Inc., helped teach students how to shoot video and ask good questions. Prairie is a nonprofit Cincinnati organization that aims to bridge racial and socio-economic barriers through photography-based programs for students and schools.

Rosenthal has conducted 50 such programs in local schools, bringing community organizations and activists together with the students.

Late last year, Rosenthal approached administrators at DePaul Cristo Rey to see if they could partner to create a project together.

Rosenthal said he was specifically interested in working with DePaul Cristo Rey, a private Catholic high school in Clifton that serves low-income families that can't afford traditional college-prep high schools.

"They don’t typically have the same after-school programs and activities that other schools do," Rosenthal said. "The students there, as far as I’ve found, don’t have the level of support to do projects like this. I think it’s important for all students to go out and experience this and learn."

Rosenthal said it's also important for students to get the opportunity to serve communities, which his program offers.

"One of the great things about service-learning programs is that they are not only learning, but they are learning their role in the world to serve and understand complex issues, by working with people who are impacted," he said.

In January, Rosenthal partnered with Erin Bole, an English teacher at DePaul Cristo Rey who teaches an Exploring Justice class. Students in the class decided they wanted to explore criminal justice and the prison system.

"Kids are so compassionate and so interested in justice when they are younger," Bole said. "I’m a teacher because I believe young people can change the world, and I want to foster that."

Over the course of the next five months, students researched the criminal justice system, learned how to use video equipment, and interviewed experts from the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, a Downtown advocacy and policy organization that aims to help people with a criminal history, and Cincinnati Works, a nonprofit organization that helps people living in poverty achieve self-sufficiency.

Sasha Appatova, a lawyer with the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, said she was impressed the students decided to focus on the barriers that exist for people with a criminal record.

"It's not a topic that I think the broader community talks about enough," she said.

Appatova said she was also impressed with the final product.

"I hope the video will change the conversation to focus on human dignity," Appatova said.

"I hope the public will see that a person with a criminal record is first and foremost a person, that there is human dignity that they deserve," she added. "We are not talking about criminals. We are talking about humans who want good jobs, who want to be good parents, who want to be assets to their communities."