Yes! Social-issue documentaries do inspire dialogue and motivate people to take action. More than 70% of those that saw Deadline and then visited this website said that their perspective on the death penalty and the criminal justice system had changed. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that all those people will then take action. It is equally unfortunate that people are not likely to act when an issue does not affect them. (It is important to realize that most people don't even get the choice of acting or not.)

However, the "talk-back" question shows that social-issue documentaries have the ability to make people THINK about contemporary issues. If we're all thinking about social issues, then we're likely to discuss them with those around us-- family, friends, co-workers, etc.

As a society, this country gets most of its information from the TV. Thus, people are very responsive to visual images edited with sound. If we are exposed to seeing those that are affected by contemporary issues and we get to hear their experiences/stories, then a connection is made. Good filmmakers can sometimes make the connection for you, or make the connection without you knowing they did.

It is important to see how many issues are interconnected and skillfully-made and edited documentaries are surely one powerful educational and advocacy tool.

I hope it will, but the problem is, is that it showed only one side, the side that was against the death penalty. I would like to see a more fair documentary. My family was in this documentary, we were the victim's family that was involved with the double homicide of Darin Oellerich and Rhonda Wurm, murdered by Robert K. Jones on June 19, 1999. I would like to hear from Victim's rights advocates, more victims families who as we have been through the justice system, and find out their views. I believe the justice system is flawed, but I don't believe that former Govenor Ryan could have gone through all 167 hearings and decided that ALL were to be commuted. I believed they should have been looked at more closely than two months. The clememcy hearings were in October for aproximately two weeks, and Mr. Ryan had only two months to really examine all 167 of those hearings to make his decision. I do not believe that, that was enough time to make this kind of decision. What he did will go down in history, but the only one who received any closure, was him, and possibly the families of the prisoners. There will be no closure at all for the victim's families, like my family. We are still going to court, even though Robert K. Jones got life without parole. He still has the right to appeal anything. We don't have that right, if any rights at all. Where is our rights???? I want that right to throw away the key, so we don't have to read, see, or hear of Robert K. Jones for the rest of our lives. He caused enough grief for our family, let us move on...