In 1994, producer Frank Darabont teamed up with author Stephen King to create their first prison movie, The Shawshank Redemption. It was based on King's short story, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," from his book, Different Seasons: Four Novellas. Despite disappointing sales during its time in theaters, the film would become a cult classic. Nearly 30 years later, it's still frequently rerun on TV.

In this episode I unpack the links between what we see on TV and what we come to believe about the world. In the case of prison, when we see images of dark spaces with violent characters willing to victimize one another for minimal gains, we naturally come to believe that those scenes are based on something real. We might not believe that prison is that bad, but we still come to believe that it is bad. And the characters themselves also teach us things about prison which cause us to become more supportive of harsh punishments, including the death penalty.

Mike Nellis's work, “The Aesthetics of Redemption: Released Prisoners in American Film and Literature,” is available in Theoretical Criminology.

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