Encounters with Ghouls and Gaols
It’s friday the 13th, and it seems therefore the perfect date to discuss a recent excursion I made following in the footsteps of Charles Dickins to visit Eastern State Penitentiary the prison that would found the Pennsylvania system, a truly brutal prison system, despite it’s origins in high ideals of rehabilitation. The prison was designed by John Haviland (who was born near my home town in England) and opened on October 25, 1829, and is considered the world’s first true penitentiary (a place of penance). Eastern State’s revolutionary system of incarceration, dubbed the “Pennsylvania System” or Separate system, encouraged separate confinement (the warden was legally required to visit every inmate every day, and the overseers were mandated to see each inmate three times a day) as a form of rehabilitation. But otherwise the prisoners would be in total isolation, seeing no-one for the duration of their sentence, being hooded when being moved around, and wearing woolen socks over their shoes to preserve the silence. Locked up for 23 hours a day, and up to 1 hour of exercise in individual private ‘yards’.
“If this is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners, she doesn’t deserve to have any.”
— (Oscar Wilde)
The system of design following ideology was fascinating to observe, and the Pennsylvania system quickly become popular with prison design around the world, including Pentonville in the UK, where Oscar Wilde spent time before being transferred to Wandsworth and finally Reading. Today prison designers have a host of potential prison systems to choose from, and one of the more recently popular ones has been based on the never actually constructed Panopticon system developed as a form of prison reform by Jeremy Bentham (a philosopher whose liberal idea influenced the founding of my former University). The panopticon and the pensylvania system are both based the hopes of ‘improving’ prison condition, the panopticon based on liberalism and the pennsylvanian system based on Christian Quakerism. They both in their own way are total failures, for the prison is in all its forms a system of horror.
“The best haunted experience we have ever visited”
— (Fangoria Magazine, October 22, 2009)
The reason for visiting this site was to go on the “Terror Behind the Walls” haunted halloween tour. The prison is reputedly haunted, and numerous TV shows about haunting and paranormal activity have filmed episodes there, the perfect location then for a haunted house! One of the most wonderful things from a conservation perspective about the haunted tour is that it is run by Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, Inc. (ESPHS), a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, and the proceeds are used to make accessible, preserve and interpret the site. The event began in 1991 with actors telling ghost stories to a few hundred visitors, in 1995 it was rebranded to its current incarnation as a low-gore family friendly haunted house walk through drawing thousand through the doors, the actors playing the ghouls were both hilarious and creepy and the set up of the haunted house was very clever and fun. I thought this a wonderful example of the use of a building to raise money for preservation. Sheer spine tingling brilliance.
“The daytime tour – which is another AMAZING experience. (Steve Buscemi narrates it, along with former inmates).”
— (Fangoria Magazine, October 22, 2009)
I also managed to have a quick self guided daytime tour of the prison, with a wonderful narration that tells the story of the prison and the changes over time, truth be told it would be possible to spend many hours wandering the prison, it is a massive complex. However, the tour is well paced and interesting, with an initial ten stops to ‘tell you the story’ and then around 25 other points of interest that you can also select, including the popular and plush Al Capone cell, and stories of escapes and riots within the prison complex. All in all I think this is a fabulous site to visit, especially around Halloween where two very different uses of the building come together.
“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
-(Dostoyevsky).
Now, whether or not there are ‘ghosts’ at ESP doesn’t really interest me, but, walking around the prison during the day, and discovering more of it’s history and ideology, the true brutality of prison life and the concept of imprisonment as a punishment (whether intended for penance or not) come back to haunt your every step. It is impossible to not consider the current system of prisons, and the mealy mouthed politicians who speak of being ‘tough on crime’. The current system has quite rightly been referred to as a ‘prison-industrial complex‘, that is to say simply that there are a network of actors who seek to actively make a profit rather than to simply address issues of criminality. This model is rapidly spreading around the world, but, it most pronounced in the US where it first began. The existence of such a complex goes a long way to explain the dramatic rise in imprisonment, most particularly under the guise of the ludicrous ‘war on drugs‘, a war that increasingly appears to have been waged by the US Government against working class, and particularly African American, communities in the wake of the 1960’s and 1970’s radicalism. Moreover the active criminalization of poverty itself continues apace further pushing ever upwards the number of incarcerated working class folk, and people of color. In these times of recession the prison-industry continues to be a growth market for those in power, and increasingly home for those who are not.
The growth of the prison-industrial complex: USA incarceration timeline
Prisons therefore provide a fascinatingly complex set of questions for those of us engaged in cultural conservation, especially those of us who like me believe in prison abolition. It is my belief that both conservators and museums need to take a deeper look at prisons and develop stronger contacts with prisoners; for their stories are so rarely told, and within the context of the prison their stories are as, if not more, interesting than criminal law, or architectural design. In fact their stories tell us a lot about the society in which we live, that which museums have set themselves the task of presenting to the public. It seems obvious that ethically conservators cannot ignore prisoners anymore than they can ignore any other part of society. Some museums and galleries have taken at least a starting approach in this, by linking up with prisoners to exhibit prison artwork, but there must be other ways, for example; I could imagine that a whole host of fascinating museum exhibitions could be developed with the authors of Journal of Prisoners on Prison. Other approaches could follow the example of effective use of ruined prisons as set out by ESP. Intentionally leaving the majority of the prison as a stabilized ruin, whilst keeping aside some areas for the haunting tour, and others have been reconstructed in a variety of ways to tell the story of the life of the prison; as well as using aspects of the prison to host art works. The stark brutality of the prison, as it is, remains a testament to the horror of imprisonment, and a most ideal situation to discuss crime, punishment and the prison-industrial complex in contemporary society. A task that museums and conservators surely should embrace along with allies they will surely find in this task behind the bars.
Eastern State Penitentiary Links:
* Eastern State Penitentiary. http://www.easternstate.org/
+ Halloween: Terror Behind the Walls.
* ActionVance and GinaBean Fearful. 2009. Halloween Haunts: Terror Behind the Walls. Fangoria. Thursday, October 22, 2009.
Some References of Interest:
* Angela Davis. 1998. Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex. ColorLines, Fall 1998.
* Charles Dickins. 1842. American Notes for General Circulation. Chapter 7: Philadelphia and it’s Solitary Prison.
* Eric Schlosser. 1998. The Prison-Industrial Complex. The Atlantic Monthly (December 1998).
* Peter Wagner. 2003. The Prison Index: Taking the Pulse of the Crime Control Industry. Western Prison Project.
* Kristian Williams. 2009. “A Criminal with a Noble Face”: Oscar Wilde’s Encounters with the Victorian Gaol. Perspectives on Anarchist Theory
Peer-Reviewed Journal by Prisoners:
* Journal of Prisoners on Prison: http://www.jpp.org/ (includes prison art covers).
Art and Prison Links:
*Big House Art: http://www.bighouseart.com/
* Prison Art: http://www.prisonart.org/
* Cell Block Visions: http://cellblockvisions.com
* Prison Art Network: http://www.panproject.org
* Children’s prison Art (Harris County, Texas): http://www.childrensprisonart.org/
* Art Behind Bars: http://www.artbehindbars.org/
* Prison Creative Arts Project: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/pcap/
* Prisons Foundation: http://www.prisonsfoundation.org/
Some Useful Prison Abolition and Prisoner Rights Links:
* Prison Art Network Project: http://www.panproject.org/
* Prison Activist Resource Center: http://www.prisonactivist.org/
* Books Through Bars: http://www.booksthroughbars.org/
* Amnesty International: http://www.amnesty.org/
* Critical Resistance: http://www.criticalresistance.org/
* National Jericho Movement: http://www.thejerichomovement.com/
* IWW General defense Committee: http://www.iww.org/en/projects/gdc
* Anarchist Black Cross Federation: http://abcf.net/
* Prisoner’s Advice Service: http://www.prisonersadvice.org.uk/
* Miscarriages of Justice UK: http://www.mojuk.org.uk/
* Liberty: http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/
* November Coalition: http://www.november.org/
* ACLU: Prisoner’s Rights Section: http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights
