8 hours ago
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Suffolk County jail inmates locked up on drug convictions used a photo program pushed by the sheriff to get clean — and now their pics are part of an art exhibit.
Twenty nonviolent offenders in the Yaphank Correctional Facility are having their photos posted in the visiting lobby of the facility through the month of September as part of the Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr.’s Addiction Treatment Program.
“This program has changed my whole life,” said Skyler Davis, who was released from jail in late August after serving his time on drug possession charges.
The five-week photography program paired participants with photographer Saskia Keeley, who taught them portrait photography and guided them through building collages that captured where they’d been, where they were and where they hoped to go, Keeley explained.
Keeley, who has run similar programs in jails and prisons around the country, said the idea is to empower people to put their criminal pasts behind them.
Another inmate, Sean Hughes Jackson, said that it wasn’t until he was incarcerated that he realized he wasn’t living a “normal” life.
“I was doing drugs with my mother — and I thought that was normal,” Jackson said.
Sheriff Toulon, a Democrat, said the program has helped change people’s outlooks over the last four years.
“Incarceration is [not] a substitute for rehabilitation or treatment, but while someone is in our custody, we have a responsibility to give them every possible tool to make a different choice when they leave here,” Toulon said.
English (US)