Hollywood actor Tim Robbins founded The Actors’ Gang in 1981 to promote progressive theater around the world. The groups intention was to provide drama workshops to the incarcerated and to give them a means to express their emotions.
Robbins speaks about the The Actors’ Gang and what it means to the prisoners and to society. Calling it a “public safety issue,” Robbins talks about how vital it is for the prisoner to become emotionally rehabilitated before being released back into the community, making it less likely they reoffend and fall into old habits.
For the last six years, Tim Robbins has been taking The Actors’ Gang into six California prisons to conduct drama classes. It’s very difficult in prison to show fear, to show sadness, happiness,” said Robbins, who is the group’s founding artist director. “It’s pretty much an environment of anger.”
That being said, the repeat offender rates for the prisoners who have been taking his acting classes, have been cut dramatically, cutting the six out of 10 inmates repeat offending statistics in half. The reason, Robbins said, is that it gives a path for the prisoners to express their once repressed emotions.
The program has proven so successful, that state officials are now considering further funding for The Actors’ Gang to continue their classes on the inside.
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