KTLA News: "Live concert for incarcerated people" (1976)

Ronnie, Gina, and Peach were one of four musical groups who gave a concert this weekend for the inmates of the federal correctional institution at Terminal Island. They hope to put together a tour of major federal prisons and feature bigname entertainers. There's been a growing effort to bring live entertainment inside the prisons to break the monotony and try to make a more normal life for those inside. Johnny Cash, a former inmate himself, gave impetus to the movement with his several appearances and other entertainers are following. It's part of a program to encourage constructive leisure time activities to treat them more as individuals. Many of the inmates say such programs are powerful morale builders. I think we should have more of it, much more because we have a like of uh no entertainment inside. We don't have a lot of people that's professional entertainers and uh it helps life go on, you know, even though we're confined, you know, we are still living and it means a lot. Well, they're very important because it might be a great understatement, but uh being in prison is a pretty rotten experience and uh having these shows gives you a brief respite from the uh kind of oppressive reality that you have here. Well, the shows are really a necess well a necessary item in the lives here because we're confined, restricted obviously and uh they provide the diversion that's necessary to keep a compound that's overloaded as this one is now. We're about 900 people in the place and it's built for about 600 and it really is well a delight and it's entertaining to say the least, you know. >> How do your friends feel about them? >> I don't know anybody who doesn't like them. You get full attendance at all the shows that we've had so far. Tomorrow, some of the innovative programs being used at the facility to help inmates prepare for the day they'll be released. This is Stan Chambers reporting from the Federal Correctional Facility at Terminal Island. Oh, you made me feel like you made me. But now that you're so far from me, I dream of you all night. And the key is I satisfied you.