The Work

WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT AND EXONERATION: A NATIONAL EPIDEMIC

Nationally, wrongful convictions are at an epidemic stage. Here are some statistics from the national Innocence Project to put the issue in perspective:

• 367 DNA exonerations to date

• 37: States where exonerations have been won

• 14: Average number of years served

• 26.5: Average age at time of wrongful conviction

• 42.8: Average age at exoneration

• 5, 097.5: Total number of years served from DNA-based exonerations (This number is constantly updated — click HERE to get the current number.)

  • 22, 010 - Total number of years served from the National Registry of Exonerations, which includes all methods of exonerations

 THE WORK

The Innocents is social justice advocacy through performance art. The work is an effort to delve deeply into the most current issues surrounding the core subject of wrongful imprisonment and exoneration, as well as a commitment to connect with the communities in which it is performed. We have embraced our role as advocates through the realization that our work cuts to the emotional core of the human experience surrounding these issues. 

Using a variety of found-object and home-made instruments, electronic soundscapes, and spoken texts, we (performer-composers John Lane and Allen Otte) have devised a one-hour dramatic soundscape comprised of at least seventeen individual tableaus which endeavor to explore various aspects of the issues surrounding wrongful imprisonment and exoneration in the American criminal justice system: mistaken identity, incarceration, injustice, politics, psychology, and resilience.

The texts spoken in the work are derived from a variety of sources: various historic prison diaries/poetry, interrogation transcripts, Google autocomplete, Thomas Jefferson, Jax (a female prisoner in the Oklahoma State Prison system), Mark Godsey (former NY prosecutor, author of Blind Injustice), captured Chicago police scan chatter, among many other sources. In an effort to make our work relevant, each major performance has originally crafted tableaus (texts and or music) that directly resonate with the local communities in which we are performing. 

Some of the pieces are meant to be uncomfortable – a bit too long, momentarily chaotic and confusing, difficult to understand, provocative. Others are simple and direct: melodic and in familiar genres, lyrics recited to percussive accompaniment. Working on an emotional level, our idea is to shine a light on this subject—as if through a prism—in hopes that various aspects surrounding it may briefly come into focus for each of us. 

American society’s struggle with mass incarceration is a volatile and divisive issue. While it disproportionately affects people of color, specifically African American men, wrongful conviction is a subset of mass incarceration which resonates across all lines of race, class, political affiliations, age and gender. We have performed this work in a version specially made for educational settings – a public charter school with a range of ages, public high schools, and community colleges. Our experience in these environments is that a non-partisan socio-political issue, presented not as didactic instruction but rather as creative art delivered with the highest level of expertise and commitment, elicits from these younger audiences stimulating, thought-provoking comments and questions, demonstrating palpable engagement with the issue.

HISTORY OF OUR WORK

Our connection with the work of wrongful imprisonment and exoneration goes back to 2006 when we first created an early iteration of the work at the opening of a photography exhibit at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center by Taryn Simon of the same title. We have no official connection to Taryn’s work, but we were inspired by and introduced to the work of the Innocence Project through this opportunity. Originally presented as a ten-minute concert recital piece, it has been under almost constant updates with a variety of forms, significant expansions and revisions.

The Innocents, in various forms, has been presented for exonerees, lawyers, volunteers, and community supporters who are actually doing the work, including a featured session at the 2019 Innocence Network Conference in Atlanta, the organization’s annual international conference. It has been the exonerees who have been the most supportive of our continuing this effort. We are currently working with the Texas Innocence Project on upcoming educational outreach events. 

One aspect of this project's engagement with underserved individuals, and one of our strongest personal interactions to date, has been setting a poem by a woman incarcerated in Oklahoma's maximum security prison for women. She is a participant in Poetic Justice, a writing therapy program in Oklahoma women’s prisons. Some of her poetry has been published through them. We asked her, through the organization, for her permission to use her text. The response we got was: "Yes, please do...I have no voice here...I welcome someone on the outside speaking in my name".  

THE FILM

Documentation of our work is being captured in a feature-length documentary film by Wojciech Lorenc. Wojciech is a media maker whose works span feature and short documentaries, narratives, online video, and interactive works such as apps and virtual reality games and experiences. His films received numerous awards, two Midwest Emmy nominations, and screened in over one hundred festivals in fifteen countries.  His online works reached over 40 million viewers around the world. Beginning in 2018, Wojciech has been filming educational outreach sessions, performances, and more candid moments/ interviews as we have been on tours in Oklahoma, Ohio and will join us for upcoming tours of Minnesota and Texas.