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:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“He that has his chains knocked off, and the prison doors set open to him, is perfectly at liberty, because he may either go or stay, as he best likes; though his preference be determined to stay, by the darkness of the night, or illness of the weather, or want of other lodging. He ceases not to be free, though the desire of some convenience to be had there absolutely determines his preference, and makes him stay in his prison.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“Lawyers are necessary in a community. Some of you ... take a different view; but as I am a member of that legal profession, or was at one time, and have only lost standing in it to become a politician, I still retain the pride of the profession. And I still insist that it is the law and the lawyer that make popular government under a written constitution and written statutes possible.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)