About The Film
Pollsmoor Correctional Facility in Capetown, South Africa is well-known throughout the world. Plagued with overcrowding and a powerful prison gang culture, Pollsmoor is extremely unsafe. Not only for the prisoners but also for the guards attempting to maintain order. It is a place where even the mildest of offenders can emerge as hardened criminals.
Jonathan Clayton was incarcerated in the maximum-security block at Pollsmoor for 3 years. Fear, loneliness, and seclusion were his constant companions. On March 18, 1991 Jonathan was set free. He knelt down, kissed the entrance grounds of the prison, and vowed never to return.
IT WAS A VOW THAT JONATHAN WOULD BE UNABLE TO KEEP.
For the past 20 years, Jonathan Clayton has returned to Pollsmoor to serve this population of people abandoned and discounted by the rest of society as a lost cause. Jonathan developed and implemented a voluntary program for offenders entitled “Restorative Justice.”
During 8-weeks of intensive training, inmates must come to terms with the reality and impact of the crimes they’ve committed. This includes facing the consequences that their actions had on victims and victims’ families, as well as the impact their crimes had on their own families. After completing the course, the offenders and victims sit down face-to-face for a Victim/Offender Dialogue which offers victims an opportunity to face their attacker head on.
Jonathan becomes our eyes and ears into this world. Teaching us to see the world differently. To see people differently.
