Saturday, November 6, 2010

Back from Jail

Hello all, I've been gone for a little while. Where was I? Prison.

Don't worry, I was there voluntarily. In light of my masters project on criminology I sent a formal request to the local prison to be allowed to spend a week inside their walls. To my surprise, I received permission about a month ago (my university and the prison have a pretty good reciprocal relationship, but things like this aren't done often). Coincidentally, they had been renovating one of the 6 wings. Renovation was now complete but the wing wouldn't be occupied with new prisoners until January at the earliest so they had room to accept my request.

I was told I would be put in the empty A wing at nights, but I would join the inmates of B wing during daily activities. After signing my way through a small forest of permission slips and waivers clearing the warden and the government and everybody else of any responsibility for my safety the day of my internment finally arrived. I was promised I would be treated like every other inmate and to that end only security personnel (the guards) were made aware of the reason for my presence. Other employees like the workshop master, the garden master, the kitchen crew, and so on thought I was just another guy with more bills than he could afford and who opted to do some jail time instead.

BTW: I liked the format of my Parachuting-posts, keeping the posts short and succinct for easy reading and typing and I will be doing the same here. So look forward to my experiences from day 1 in my next post!

24 comments:

  1. Hey there, interesting story! Gonna follow you!

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  2. Man that was a good trick for people to read the whole article. Interesting read.

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  3. wow cool story. I hope i never get there tho, but i'm sure it was a wonderfull experience fitting in your project.

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  4. Voluntarily going to prison? You got my attention. : )

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  5. Nice experience,but i doubt i will ever go to jail if i'm not forced to :V

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  6. so how was the orange and bologna sandwiches? that's what i remember...also, dig the posts on parachuting...7yr member of USPA myself. remember to pack your own, you get out what you put in :)

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  7. Wow, I would never be able to do that. Hope you got what you wanted from your project.

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  8. i would never do that...i would be to scared to get raped by those prisoners who drop soap :S

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  9. I've actually wanted to do this just to see how it is..

    luckily I had the chance after getting a DUI :'(

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  10. Wow I would never do that either man. Supporting you!!

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  11. LOL sounds dangerous. hope you had fun! :)

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  12. So surprised by the lack of "don't drop the soap" comments. I won't be the one to ruin that.

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  13. Seems dangerous. I wouldnt be brave enough to do it.

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  14. You are a very brave man for volunteering to be inside a prison. Hope it was an eye-opening experience.

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  15. Sound like an interesting experience, I might consider doing that myself!

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  16. Lol, I was like WTF at the beginning of your post ^^

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  17. lol , never was in prison and i dont think i want

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  18. Did you also took shower in the prison?

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  19. Wow, that sounds very very scary, gotta let us know about the experience!!

    very interesting blog!! come check mine out when you have the chance :)

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