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 prison, popular and/or culture:
“All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt’s for work be shod,”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The first time many women hold their tiny babies, they are apt to feel as clumsy and incompetent as any man. The difference is that our culture tells them they’re not supposed to feel that way. Our culture assumes that they will quickly learn how to be a mother, and that assumption rubs off on most women—so they learn.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)