I initially suspected that I’d spend the entirety of Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken in tears. The film was grainy but the grass was vivid as we traveled down a two-line country road to the Topeka Correctional Facility and saw the barbed-wire fencing outside it from every available angle. Melissa was singing “I’m The Only One” to a crowd of female inmates in navy blue and maroon t-shirts — many of whom, themselves, were crying. Old butches with buzzcuts and tattoos, middle-aged women with weather-beaten skin and french braids, younger girls with no interest in the concert but clearly just happy to be outside and entertained. It could’ve been any Melissa Etheridge show, really, and I’ve been to a few. It’s really nice, you know, to be in community with your people singing your intense lesbian country-rock ballads with a truly iconic pioneer. She’s still up there, and she’s still giving it her all in her raw, wide-open, unmistakable voice.

Luckily for the skin that surrounds my eyeballs, I didn’t, ultimately, cry through the whole thing. Eventually my emotions leveled out. The docuseries was moving and heartwarming and deeply empathetic, and a must-watch for Etheridge fans. But I found myself wondering an awful lot where the line is between “imposing my personal political agenda on a work of art” and “wanting a work of art to portray the world it represents with responsible accuracy.”

But let’s not start there.

Instead, here: Etheridge grew up in Leavenworth, Kansas, an area replete with prisons, and in fact performed for inmates as a very young budding folk musician. She recalls the audience at her local correctional facility making her feel like “a female Johnny Cash,” and for that reason and many others, had hoped to perform for incarcerated audiences again some day. For this documentary, Etheridge corresponded by letter with five inmates of the Topeka Correctional Facility, using their stories and her in-person conversations with them as inspiration for a new song, “Burning Woman,” which she performs in the aforementioned concert.

Each of those five residents get a solid chunk of time to tell the story of the circumstances that landed them in prison. It’s a big-hearted point of view that never passes judgment on its topic — believing, truly, that everyone is worth more than the worst thing they’ve ever done. Etheridge, who lost her son to opioid addiction in 2020 — and speaks with clarity and wisdom on how she’s approached living with that grief and channeling it into advocacy — notes that most of these women’s stories begin with drug addiction. Most also begin with abuse and neglect.

“I know there’s so much wrong with the penal system in general,” Etheridge tells the women, but then she goes on to say that the warden and employees she’s spoken to have expressed a desire to heal and release their inmates, which gives her hope. This perspective on this specific facility is echoed by the shared personal stories and interior footage. Scenes are shot in a cheery, well-stocked library, a nursery and play area with themed rooms for when children come to visit, a neatly organized supply room, a prison bunk decorated with dozens of crocheted teddy bears. They talk about their jobs in prison (we don’t hear about the $1.05 a day they’re paid to perform them) and we see inmates walking down empty corridors and doing interviews in empty rooms, no sign of the overcrowding that has plagued the facility. We meet people like Classification Administrator Meghan Davis, who explains victimization statistics (whereas men are less likely to be the victims of crime as they age, women remain just as likely) and her philosophy of healing that trauma, stressing the importance of treatment that’s proactive (community services) instead of re-active (e.g., prison). I wish conversations like that had gone a bit further, to address the numerous interventions that could’ve turned things around for these women before they became another cog in the prison-industrial complex.

I’d love to believe that the Topeka Correctional Facility is exactly as it is portrayed — full of caring, devoted Correctional Officers, overseen by competent, fair leadership; full of opportunities for enrichment, learning and progress; well-staffed with doctors and therapists; free of drugs and a healthy place for women to detox.

I’d love to believe that this is not the same place where prison staff mocked, rather than helped, a resident who was unable to walk and required medical treatment, and threatened to write up inmates who tried to offer aid, an incident that NPR noted is consistent with patterns of medical mistreatment by private oft-fined contractor Centurion, a for-profit corporation who serves Kansas prisons including this one. The Topeka Correctional Facility for Women was isolated as the site of the most frequent source of medical care violations in the entire state. Just last month, six inmates filed suit alleging deliberate indifference to their safety and health via the food provided by notorious prison food supplier Aramark Food Service, an open flow of dangerous drugs, and exposure to toxins and molds in an environment lacking ventilation.

I’m not arguing for any of those topics to be the subject of, or even mentioned within, this documentary. I also imagine the producers of the film and Etheridge herself were abiding by whatever agreement was necessary to give them the freedom to film there at all. And for an audience not already inclined to see the residents as full humans deserving of empathy and consideration, the documentary does a great job changing that.

But for those of us for whomst that is a foregone conclusion, it’s tough to ignore the docuseries’ own foregone conclusion — that prison is a productive place to put people who have engaged in criminalized behavior, even when those crimes are a result of poverty and drug addiction, problems better solved with financial support and medical treatment than with incarceration. That prison is a place for introspection and redemption, an opportunity that the individual has the choice to accept or deny. It certainly can be a chance to turn it all around — Etheridge also catches up with the truly charming and inspirational Leavenworth mayor, Jermaine Wilson, himself a convicted felon who eventually became determined to end the cycle for his own son. In prison, Wilson sobered up, took community college classes and leadership training and now is, you know, the mayor!

But logic suggests and research has shown that incarceration is more likely to cause harm than to help — severing inmates from friends and family, subjecting them to dangerous and unhealthy conditions including physical and sexual abuse, failing to shield them from drugs, leaving them more traumatized than before they came in. Options that aid, rather than punish, are often more effective and less expensive. Not to mention the barriers to employment, housing, and education faced by inmates upon release, as well as challenges specific to female inmates. The danger in narratives that suggest a “rock bottom” like prison must be met in order for change to occur is that more money is funneled into incarceration instead of into the services that could prevent it.

I hope the documentary turns people onto The Etheridge Foundation, Melissa’s non-profit dedicated to advancing new treatments for opioid use disorder. Etheridge has long been an advocate for marijuana decriminalization, which is one way to reduce incarceration rates. 

That all said, within the current system, it’s important and inspirational, to see artists like Etheridge making public efforts to connect with female inmates and push back against the stigma of incarceration and drug addiction. Etheridge said she visited the facility to inspire and empower the women, and she does that handily. “A lot of people say they care,” says Leigh, who is serving 15 years for possession with intention to distribute. “But we don’t see that, you know? It’s kinda rough. So I’m just like, really grateful that she gave a shit, you know? It means a lot, really.”

There’s a chorus in “Burning Woman” where Etheridge invites them to sing along in a call and repeat — I might have fucked things up, Etheridge yells. But I can make a change! the woman volley in return. I can only hope and pray that the world gives them every chance to do so. That, in fact, would be truly unprecedented.

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