I don't care what you were convicted of ..... share with us.
The course I'm on at the moment organised a tour to a local prison (Mountjoy) in Dublin. It's an old Victorian prison, straight out of the movies - with a few newer additional buildings alongside it - there's a training centre, medical unit, and a cushy women's prison. The women's prison is like student accomodation, the vast majority of the inmates are drug users and they attempt to get some of them clean while inside ... pretty much against all odds.
Anyway we got a tour around those cushy bits before being brought to the mens prison, where the chief officer gave us a history lesson about the place and a few stories about how things run in the prison. We were then told when we go inside it's actually recreation time so the cells will be open and prisoners will be all about the place. But he reassured us everything would be fine and nothing much ever happens on these tours.
So we go inside, and again it's as you see it in the movies - we were stading in an atrium with four wings of cells off it. They decided to bring us upstairs to the first floor of the B wing to have a look around and literally as the gate was locked behind us a fight erupted at the other end of the wing, it properly kicked off with about 12 lads kicking the shit out of each other, within about 60 seconds there was a minimum of 50 prison officers at the scene pulling lads apart and they got is sorted quickly while 20 of us stood nervously at the other end of the landing. They all got marched past us then - one lad had been cut up - two long cuts on the side of his cheek - apparently a tradition in prison - you melt a toothbrush, stick a couple of razor blades in and voila, ready made weapon. And two razorblades are used because you can't stitch the wound, you gotta close it with glue and it never heals properly. It's amazing the things you learn in prison.
Anyway shortly after we were lead back down to the atrium until tensions calmed, within about 2 minutes things kicked off on the D wing - and we were gently shepherded out the front gate before any of us got to witness the riot gear being utilised.
Fascinating experience !
The course I'm on at the moment organised a tour to a local prison (Mountjoy) in Dublin. It's an old Victorian prison, straight out of the movies - with a few newer additional buildings alongside it - there's a training centre, medical unit, and a cushy women's prison. The women's prison is like student accomodation, the vast majority of the inmates are drug users and they attempt to get some of them clean while inside ... pretty much against all odds.
Anyway we got a tour around those cushy bits before being brought to the mens prison, where the chief officer gave us a history lesson about the place and a few stories about how things run in the prison. We were then told when we go inside it's actually recreation time so the cells will be open and prisoners will be all about the place. But he reassured us everything would be fine and nothing much ever happens on these tours.
So we go inside, and again it's as you see it in the movies - we were stading in an atrium with four wings of cells off it. They decided to bring us upstairs to the first floor of the B wing to have a look around and literally as the gate was locked behind us a fight erupted at the other end of the wing, it properly kicked off with about 12 lads kicking the shit out of each other, within about 60 seconds there was a minimum of 50 prison officers at the scene pulling lads apart and they got is sorted quickly while 20 of us stood nervously at the other end of the landing. They all got marched past us then - one lad had been cut up - two long cuts on the side of his cheek - apparently a tradition in prison - you melt a toothbrush, stick a couple of razor blades in and voila, ready made weapon. And two razorblades are used because you can't stitch the wound, you gotta close it with glue and it never heals properly. It's amazing the things you learn in prison.
Anyway shortly after we were lead back down to the atrium until tensions calmed, within about 2 minutes things kicked off on the D wing - and we were gently shepherded out the front gate before any of us got to witness the riot gear being utilised.
Fascinating experience !
