…That’s the worst, you know if you look up? … Up on the fours where I am, and if you look above you all the walls are just covered in dust, because obviously no one can get up there to clean so there’s about five years’ worth of dust up there. … I don’t see the point in cleaning on the floor and you look up and it’s disgusting … you think surely when they get inspections and that they get told to clean it.
We want to understand what these prisons are like to live and work in, and how has this changed over time. We are examining the ways that these prison buildings carry traces of the past, while operating in the present day.
The project considers how and why these buildings have survived for so long, and asks how we will know when they have reached the end of their operational lives. We consider the significance of the Victorian prison in shaping public and professional ideas of what prison should be like. Crucially, this project explores the implications of the continued operation of Victorian-era prisons for the contemporary prison service, and aims to inform policy development.