YouTube’s VR Experience Spotlights Youth Incarceration [Video]

The Google-owned video-sharing platform partnered with Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY)—a nonprofit that works to end extreme sentencing for youth in America—to launch Project Witness, which uses technology to show the realities of child incarceration.

YouTube’s immersive experiences team worked with CFSY to conceptualize a virtual reality film, which spotlights the lived stories of six people who served sentences as minors. The seven-minute film, produced by Black Dot Films VR, uses 360-degree VR technology to place viewers inside a prison environment, with settings including a transport vehicle and solitary confinement cell. The film is available for the public to watch on CFSY’s YouTube page; the brand recommends using a VR headset, but it can also be viewed on desktop and mobile.

According to Malika Saada Saar, …