Turning Point: New documentary follows SC nonprofit’s mission helping men leaving prison
The United States puts more people in prison than any country. There are 1.8 million people in state and federal prisons around the country. As a portion of their total population, only El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda and Turkmenistan imprison a larger percentage of their populations, according to the World Population Review.
So what happens when inmates are released from prison? And how do we stop them from going back?
A new documentary titled “Turning Point” spotlights how Turn90, a South Carolina-based nonprofit, is on the cutting edge of providing services for formerly incarcerated South Carolinians.
When Amy Barch founded Turn90 in Charleston in 2012 under the name TurningLeaf, she believed it would be a success. To Barch, originally from Eureka, California, it seemed like a no-brainer that a program combining the proven methods of cognitive behavioral therapy, workplace training and a sustainable business model could help address the needs of men leaving prison.
Thirteen years later, Turn90 has centers in Charleston, Columbia and Greenville. It provides programming that blends cognitive behavioral therapy with working in a self-supporting business. Starting with screen printing workshops, Turn90 has expanded its business to include industrial services that offer parts cleaning, assembly and prep work.
The new documentary, produced by Susie Films alongside South Carolina ETV and the ETV Endowment, tracks the growth of Turn90 alongside the struggles and success of the men the organization serves as they try to readjust to life outside of prison.
On April 30, the documentary had its premier in front of 600 people at the Charleston Music Hall, and it is being screened on Wednesday, May 7, at the Nickelodeon Theater in Columbia.
While Barch said that she hadn’t set out to make a documentary, she had been wanting for years to find a way to memorialize the organization’s growth. As Turn90 grew out of its original space — a building located in what Barch called a gravel pit with a rodent problem and only one bathroom with a door — she felt it was important to remember where they had come from.
She also hopes that the documentary will help draw attention to a model that has seen growth and real world impact.
“This is a starting point, a proof of concept,” Barch said in an interview with The State. “We are creating an entirely new type of social service, we’re creating a new type of infrastructure that doesn’t exist and we’re still figuring out how to do this right.”
The success is in the numbers. Since 2022, Turn90 has employed over 330 men, with the overwhelming majority reporting better coping skills and no new arrests, according to Turn90’s annual reports.
While South Carolina’s incarceration rate is around the middle of the pack nationally, the state has one of the lowest rates of re-offense, according to a study by the Council of State Governments.
But that doesn’t mean it was easy.
“It’s not as simple as just ‘go get a job,’” Barch said. “That idea is not grounded in how people live.”
The men Turn90 serves not only typically lack qualifications like a GED or basic skills like writing a resume, Barch said, but having spent significant portions of their lives in prison, many don’t understand workplace norms the rest of us take for granted. They struggle with anger, or have learned to respond to situations with aggression. That’s where the behavioral therapy and a network of other men who have shared their struggles make a crucial difference alongside job training.
Barch is an undeniable force of nature who has driven much of Turn90’s success, but if it had been left up to her, she would’ve been left out of the documentary altogether, she said.
“My entire life’s work is lifting up these guys, they have value and worth independent to me,” Barch said.
Many of the Turn90’s key employees are also graduates of the program. Not only are they living proof of how the program can be effective, they are among the only people who have the credibility to communicate the program to newcomers fresh out of prison, Barch said.
It was the power and importance of these stories that drew the documentary’s director, Scott Galloway, to the project in 2019. For some of the men, who had spent much of their lives equating vulnerability with weakness, it could be an overwhelming experience to be on camera.
“You sit down in a chair and you’re asked to answer questions to a person sitting just off camera. There’s a boom operator and there’s lights, so it’s hard to be totally open at first,” Galloway said.
But many quickly opened up. Men who had spent decades in prison came to enjoy having powder put on their faces for the lights and cameras mounted on their cars for driving shots.
“After some of these guys’ interviews, they were like, ‘Hey, thank you for coming in here, and thank you for sitting down and thank you for letting me share,’” Galloway said.
“I think too often, people don’t necessarily want to hear what they have to say,” he added.