A valuable experience for sure.

I didn't really know what to expect from visiting WA's male maximum security prison. I didn't know what they were willing to show a group of law students. But... man did my flight/fight responses get a work out.

They started off the tour with showing us the visiting centre. They showed us where prisoners would have their contact visits. A table with the prisoner sitting on one side, and his visitors on the other. We were told that the prisoners wear a grey tracksuit when they are out seeing visitors, once they finish with the visit, they have to change back into their green tracksuits. I think this is for security purposes as well as ID purposes. Like... since they change tracksuits, it prevents the prisoner from bringing things from inside the prison to the visitor, and like wise, prevents the prisoner being able to bring things from the outside back into the prison. ID wise, any prisoner that is wearing green and is outside of the prison, obviously is not supposed to be there.

After that we were taken to the "inside" part of the prison where we were shown where the prisoner's wait to be taken outside to the visitor's centre. When we walked in, there were some men in green tracksuits handling the exchange of greens and greys...I was like "woah... they are actual prisoners... and they are standing only a few metres away from us." Little did I know at the time that this was not going to be the first and closest interaction we would have with them.

We were taken into the grounds of the prison, they showed us the infirmary, the cells, the kitchen, laundry, different living blocks around the prison. It was an eye opener for sure. The prisoners are the ones who are in the kitchen cooking the meals (and decent meals!) They were also the ones doing the laundry... its quite similar to what you see on Prison Break. Only... a lot less darker and gloomy. It is interesting how prisoners get an allowance, and from that they have to pay for their food etc. Meals are about 2 bucks each... and as I mentioned before the meals are quite decent! They have to pay for phone calls and other items (eg magazines, chips etc)

Sensory overload... every time we were walking pass or standing near prisoners (which was a lot of the time) I was on my guard. Its amazing what a label can do to your opinion of a person. there was a little incident where when we had just walked into the central grounds of the prison where there were a few wolf whistles coming from one of the living quarters. there was no one on the grounds at the time, but they could see us from their cells...I kinda sent a shiver down my spine...like "omg... its really like that?"

There was another time when we were walking to another living block, and we walked down this path where there was a fence on both sides. Some prisoners approached the fence and started to talk to us, asking "where you guys from?" "what are you doing here?" "oh coming in to join us?" I thought I'd would have been pretty brave, would have walked with my head up high or looked them in the eye. But I wasn't. I walked pass them with my head down, or I just looked forward. I was...pretty confused as to how to respond to them, and DO I respond to them? My friend Andrew did. He told them we were law students, and some of them responded with a "Aw! so when I get out of here, I might see you when I need some free advice."

Overall these guys get a lot of autonomy during the day. They can do what they want really, wonder where ever they want. But they are dictated what to eat, where to eat, where to shower and when to leave and stay within their cells. Like I said before, it was not as gloomy or dark as what I had expected, if anything else, it looks like a cool boarding school. But nevertheless, it is still a prison, your freedoms are taken away, and you have to live among criminals. What I was curious about was, whether there was all the dark silent violence that you see on Prison Break or Shawshank Redemption... I didn't really ask.

Things like re offending seemed to be an issue. Which made me realise that even though the Prison system is seen to be a chance for the criminal to be rehabilitated, it seems that the prison system fails to do so. Our tour guide said things like "You see them in here and then released, 2 years later, they are back here," and "You see a prisoner in here, years later you will see his son, its a family business." I may be just an idealistic law student, but it appears that the prison system is flawed in its attempts to rehabilitate the criminal in order to live within society once they leave... I Guess this then leads into my criminology assignment...which I should really get a start on... since I am all rev'ed up to go since I started writing this blog entry.

I am grateful for the opportunity to see the Prison. Visitors don't get the chance to see this. Lawyers only see the conference rooms. But here, I was able to walk through the grounds of the prison. See where they ate, slept, where they go to work. I got to walk among them and be scared out of my wits as a prisoner would have felt if they had just entered the prison for the first time. There is a high level of stress in that prison. You are always on you guard. Despite the fact that they can feed themselves decent meals for about 6 bucks a day, have free medical care (if you have a heart attack, the state pays), no rent to pay, and tafe and university education available at hand... the mere fact that your in this place is bad enough, and I would never want to step foot in such a place.

Labels: Law, Opinion, Sightseeing, University