At the heart of Toshi’s opposition to the death penalty is his belief that it is fundamentally unfair. “If you are poor in this country, your life is cheap. You can’t afford a good defense lawyer. If you’re rich, you’ll never get sentenced to death,” he says. Along with the economic polarity between rich and poor defendants, race hugely impacts the death penalty system, as most death row inmates are African-American and most of their victims white. “If you’re a poor minority your life is even cheaper,” he says.
Toshi takes a fierce interest in his subjects, reaching out to them on a personal level and getting to know not only their famili.......
查看全部 »At the heart of Toshi’s opposition to the death penalty is his belief that it is fundamentally unfair. “If you are poor in this country, your life is cheap. You can’t afford a good defense lawyer. If you’re rich, you’ll never get sentenced to death,” he says. Along with the economic polarity between rich and poor defendants, race hugely impacts the death penalty system, as most death row inmates are African-American and most of their victims white. “If you’re a poor minority your life is even cheaper,” he says.
Toshi takes a fierce interest in his subjects, reaching out to them on a personal level and getting to know not only their families but the families of their victims as well as the prison officials where they are incarcerated. He describes his subjects as “precious human beings” and hopes that his work will add to the effort to abolish the death penalty. At the very least, he wants his powerful photography to lead viewers to recognize the unacceptable levels of violence that permeate American society.
The death penalty system’s fallibility, leading to more than 100 inmates being released after being found innocent, is another reason to stop executions, he says. One of his subjects is among the exonerated.
In August, 2005, Toshi was given the unprecedented opportunity to photograph death rows in Taipei and Kaoshiung, Taiwan.
Toshi Kazama 用震撼人心的青少年死刑犯的照片将废除死刑的辩论推进到刻不容缓的地步。
这位纽约的摄影师在八年中收集了大量的图片制作“青少年死刑犯：一个纪录片形式的探索”，并访问了包括校园在内的各种类型的犯罪地点，以期告知人们关于死刑的真相。
Toshi是三个孩子的父亲，他出生于日本，他说在美国抚养孩子迫使他研究这个国家的刑事司法公正以及种族问题。他很快认识到他有三个选择：视而不见不闻不问、卷铺盖走人，以及设法解决这些问题。
他选择了后者，并将自己的照相机作为相应的工具。他现在周游世界，向人们展示他拍摄的关于青少年死刑犯的黑白照片，并谈论自己的拍摄经历和感受。
Toshi反对死刑的核心观点是他认为死刑根本是不公平的。他说，“如果你很穷，你的生命就会很廉价，因为你雇不起一个好的辩护律师；如果你很富有，你就永远也不会被判死刑”。除了死刑犯贫富两极分化，种族问题同样严重影响着死刑制度的公平性。因为绝大多数被判死刑的犯人都是非洲裔美国人，而他们所犯案件的受害者大都是白人。Toshi说：“如果你很穷，而且不幸又是个少数族裔，那你的生命就更不值钱了.”
Toshi对于他所从事的工作投入了极大的热情。他不但单独接触了这些死刑犯，而且对于他们的家庭也进行了深入的了解。同时，他对受害者的家庭以及监狱的官员也进行了访问和调查。他把他的工作描述为“珍视生命”，希望通过这些工作促进死刑的取消。至少，他希望通过他的照片给观者一个强烈的冲击，使他们认识到弥漫于美国社会的暴力是如何的难以让人承受。
Toshi还有其他的理由支持取消死刑。他认为，死刑制度本身漏洞百出，每年有超过100个死刑犯人被释放当他们最终被证明无罪，这便是最好的证明。他的工作的内容之一便是采访和了解这些被误判死刑的人。
2005年8月，Toshi得到了被特许去台北和高雄拍摄死刑场面，这是一个前所未有的机会。
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