I am a part-time resident in Canon City, Colorado.   Most of the people I interact with are retirees and rafters.  I was anxious to see Prison Valley, as I rarely have interaction with prison employees and was hoping for an in-depth viewpoint on how the prison system works in it’s day-to-day operation.  Instead, I am shaking my head in disbelief at the atrocious inaccuracies of the film.

To document every non-truth in the film would take too much time away from my week, so let’s dig into the first three minutes.

Let’s start with the title of the film, Prison Valley.  It is stated emphatically in the film that the area is known as Prison Valley.  I have hundreds of clients in the Canon City area and spend most days talking with them and local residents.   Never — and I mean NEVER — have I heard Canon City referred to as “Prison Valley.” A quick Google search of “Prison Valley” results in links to the film, not the city.  Billions of web pages, yet not one page refers to Canon City as “Prison Valley.”

The woman who coins the term “Prison Valley” in the film is a prisoner’s wife from out of state.  She also declares in the first three minutes of the film, “if the prison was not here there would be nothing, and nobody, because they have nothing else to offer.” Scathing?  Yes.  Accurate?  No.

Canon City is a historic town along the Arkansas River that happens to be one of the most popular white water rafting destination in the world!  This is a tourist town that is also home to the Royal Gorge.  Rock climbers from around the world travel to Canon City to climb the legendary walls along Shelf Road.  Tremendous hiking abounds in Red Canyon Park, Garden Park Fossil Area, Phantom Canyon, Tunnel Drive, Temple Canyon, and the Sangre de Cristo mountain range.  You can go horse back riding, soak in hot springs, golf at one of the best courses in Colorado, camp in the breathtaking Rocky Mountains…  Nothing to offer?

OK, still in the first three minutes… The narrator says “we are in some god forsaken place in the middle of Colorado… Canon City.”  And yes, he really does say this.  It implies that God truly forsakes Canon City, or Canon City is in the middle-of-nowhere.   I’ll assume the filmmakers meant the latter.  Canon City is 46 miles from Colorado Springs, 41 miles from Pueblo, 59 miles from Salida, and right smack dab in the middle of the Royal Gorge Region, one of the top tourist destinations in Colorado.

Still in the first three minutes… This next statement from the film is absolute misleading, erroneous journalism.  Narrator: “Canon City is the clean version of hell.”  And once again, yes, he really does say this.

The narrator is misquoting from a CBS report in which the former warden of Supermax, Robert Hood, refers to the prison as
“a clean version of hell.”  Supermax, located in Florence, Colorado, is a federal prison holding the most notorious prisoners in the country.  The filmmakers, however, erroneously mislead viewers by misquoting the CBS story by stating “Canon City is the clean version of hell,” not the prison in Florence.

Still in the first 3 minutes… The filmmakers introduce us to the Riviera Motel in Florence, Colorado.  The narrator states the motel “is two blocks from Canon City.”  As you can see from the Google Map embedded below, the Riviera Motel is 8.6 miles from Canon City, not two blocks.  But again, we’re just in the first three minutes of the film.

View Larger Map

And the inaccuracies continue throughout the film…

The French filmmakers had an agenda to paint small town America as despicable, white trash.  They succeeded.   Their footage of alleyways, liquor stores, thunder clouds, prairies, trashcans, trailers, and a prisoner’s wife at a run down motel in Florence, Colorado in a hoodie and flip-flops was well executed. If I had no reference to Canon City or the people, I could blindly believe this “god forsaken” American small town is a “clean version of hell” that “offers nothing.”   Fortunately, I know the truth.

Unfortunately, this is the only aspect they succeed at — throwing an entire community under a bus.  Nothing of relevance was brought to light about the prison system.   They  briefly touch on Private Prisons, which Canon City does NOT have, and the problems associated with them.  They give some statistics about minorities and their likelihood of going to jail.  They also show pictures from a prison riot in Crowley County, Colorado.   Ultimately, though, the filmmakers drop the ball on what could have been an informative film about the prison industry, and instead find it easier to attack a tourist town and it’s residence.  Bravo.

Here’s my question to the filmmakers:  If you are not truthful in every aspect of your journalism, how does one believe anything you report?