Our Country's Good

The United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world; the US constitutes 4% of the world population, but keeps 22% of the world's prisoners behind bars. Many prison inmates haven't been convicted of anything—they are jailed awaiting trial or a hearing on their immigration status.

In January, Strawberry Theatre Workshop is inviting audiences to a place where the population is 100% jailed and jailers. The year is 1787, and the place is the British colony of Sydney, Australia. In one of the cruelest episodes of criminal justice in history, the governing class has ruled that criminals—even petty thieves and non-violent offenders—must be killed or exiled from England. There is no rehabilitation for a class of humans genetically defective.