I don’t know if this is a mini rant, because it speaks to such larger issues that definitely aren’t, but the specific details are in the past…
… today I took a tour of an old prison as part of a museum visit. I was prepared to accept that it was barbaric in the past (e.g. 1822) but was not prepared to learn that the furnishings and conditions involved remained in place until 1986.
No light bulbs in the cell blocks. 70+ people forced to spend daylight hours in a common room literally smaller than my bedroom, often for months as no winter clothing was provided therefore no outdoor recreation time. Literal buckets for a dozen people to shit and piss in (at night, into the 1980s), which were often thrown around in fights. A “cool down” room with a low ceilings, no light other than a slit from the hallway and no bucket where a random fucking guard could throw people into for “no more than 7 days”. Fucking dungeons with no light, no clothes, one meal per 24 hours, amid rats, mice, cockroaches and whatever else which “officially” was banned from use in the 70s but evidence exists it was used til the prison closed in the mid 80s. Historically the maximum time spent down there was 21 days. People in living memory experienced it and live with profound trauma from it. Plenty of stories of prisoners held or executed because they were easy scapegoats; women (, provincial jail, separate wing), minorities, etc. At least one execution, back when it was legal in Canada, that was likely an innocent First Nations man.
The tour was raw, but honest and compassionate (fantastic tour guide; quite frankly a recommendation) but at the same time the profound sadness and disappointment I feel in humanity’s capacity to be cruel is really eating at me. It originated in the early days of rehabilitation ideas, but barely anything changed until it was closed in the 80s for overcrowding and being obsolete. Literally the political reasons had nothing to do about human rights that hadn’t evolved within those walls in 150+ years.
I don’t know how much better things are today, but 40 years ago it was a depressing, cruel hellhole and we called it justice.
ETA; provincial crimes are 2 years less a day max sentencing. Just for context on the timilies spent by prisoners; everything from a day to two years ish.
I have visited Philly’s Eastern State prison. It was designed by Quakers. They thought ‘Solitude will give prisoners time to reflect on what they have done, to repent and to turn to the Lord.’ So basically every prisoner was kept in solitary confinement. This lead to a very high level of insanity and suicide.
A few months ago, I visited an old prison in New Jersey with my beloved and a group of friends. Sadly, I cannot remember what town it was in or the name of the prison. I was stunned to read the writings of the warden (IIRC he had served shortly after America gained its independence). He said things like ‘We cannot just lock people up. We must reform them and prepare them for the day they re enter society’ He also believed that any prisoner without the skills to make a living should be taught those skills while in prison so that they would not have to rely on theft or other crimes to survive once they were free. It was really amazing suff.
I definitely align more with the second philosophy than the raw horror of the place I saw today (architecture was cool though! I love old buildings). I only see a few posts a year on Facebook but a high school friend of mine is like a PhD and lecturer on restorative justice and there are alternatives to what I saw.
I’ve spent time in Europe and seen plenty of medieval prisons and dungeons and castles ant whatnot so none of these things surprised me as “a thing people do do to prisoners in the past.”. But today, the “past” kind of alarmed me…
…1986 … within my lifetime. That this place was built with a given capacity and the actual usage was triple until it closed just is haunting me. A room with 6 beds for 20+ people; that’s how this was used within my lifetime. Although banned, the dungeon was used.
A carving on the wall - I think a reproduction or enhancement of an original, in the death row cell - reads “J’ai aimé, j’ai souffert, maintenant j’haïs”
I loved, I suffered, now I hate.
I’m don’t think I’m naive in general about atrocities around the world or within this country but this, in a town a day trip from my home, just is really feeling heavy tonight.
The concepts are not mini at all, I’m more intending to write about disoriented I’m feeling. I can’t fix the past. I already vote in ways that don’t support such atrocities. Just…a powerful museum making me feel things that are hard to feel, I guess.
Having visited Auschwitz (used to be Oswiecim *) I totally understand what you mean.
*How Ze Germans, who famously have mile-long nearly unpronouncable words, managed to royally fuck up the simple name for a simple village is not … the most unbelievable thing about that place, but it always flummoxes me.
Heaved myself out into the winter weather to purchase some anti freeze just in case.
The local auto store is closed on the weekend.
Seriously?
Had to drive out to the mall for anti freeze. And I have to wait for the car to cool down to check and pour some in. It’s probably fine since I checked it in October but I like to be safe. Will tackle this Monday at work.
So I also stopped by the local grocery store for toilet paper, bread and meat loaf.
All ready for the snow.
No I am not - forgot to purchase some safe for concrete ice and snow removal mixture.
That’s another Monday problem.
My neighbor boys are keeping up with the shoveling and I am handing out cash.
Yeah. I use the technique where you tuck each of the corner pockets in order into the first one. Which results in something about 12-18" wide by about 4-1/2 feet long with lots of layers sorta kinda stacked at the corner end, and a long narrow 2-4 layer tail at the other end. Sorta rumple that into a semblance of a long narrow almost-rectangle, then fold in half lengthwise twice to get a sorta-square ~18x18 and a few inches thick with little tails poking out everywhere that want to catch on stuff and make the whole thing explode into a sheet again.
For bonus points, many of my sheets are satin which are slippery as heck. Sometimes the blobular just bursts of its own accord as the entire insides slide out from between the two outsides. Sorta like a kid biting an overfull sandwich that squirts all the innards across the table with their first bite.
My late first wife was quite happy with organized crumples. My now ex- second wife insisted folded fitted sheets look as neat as when they first came out of the factory package. Anything less was Simply Unacceptably Scruffy. So she got to do all of them, despite my willingness to try.
Nice to hear now that you two ladies fall on the sane end of that spectrum.
Make me the third. I often avoid the whole challenge by taking the sheets right out of the dryer and putting them back on the bed. The trade off is fighting off the cat who thinks she needs to inside those nice clean, warm sheet layers as I make the bed.
