I remember being very apprehensive in that I wasn’t quite sure what I was walking into. … But probably as well a typical twenty-two year old, a little bit of bravado that I’m all right with this. Whereas I wasn’t. I remember on day one or day two the training manager took us to a cell and said to the five of us “just go in and have a look” and then he shut the door behind us. And that still to this day is one of the biggest wake-up calls for me of how helpless a prisoner must feel, because we all just stood there looking at each other, we were only locked in there for about two minutes, but that was it. You weren’t going anywhere until somebody opened that door. So, that hit me then and that’s always stuck with me, how helpless these people must feel when you put everything else on it, what’s led to them being in that position.
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.