The West Virginian State Penitentiary was reckoned a tough place to be.
It was built in 1866 using prison labour. There was a quarry nearby, and all the old part of the prison was hewn from the rock, dressed by hand, and built into the edifice we see today. It took the prisoners ten years to do it.
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This building was where the prison started. 100 men stayed here while building the big place. |
Until the fifties, the Governor had to live on the job, and the top two stories were his home. There he lived and raised a family. Heaven only knows what the children made of it all.
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This is what the Governor's family looked down on. The other side faced The Mound. |
It was enlarged in the fifties when three new exterior walls were added. Astonishingly that took thirty years. (Hmm. I wonder why that was.)
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This is the surrounding wall that took so long to build.The toilet block on the right has no walls. They were removed after an inmate was murdered there. |
In the early days it was almost completely self sufficient. They milked their own cows, raised their own chickens and planted their own crops. Of course nowadays that's deemed unacceptable for some reason.
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A chance to communicate with your loved ones. |
It was decommissioned in 1995, the 650 prisoners were re-located, and since then tours have been available to the public.
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This air conditioned cafeteria was a concession to the prisoners after one riot. |
The black inmates sat on the far side - out of choice. The wall with the mural separated the guards. |
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Many cooking utensils were smuggled out of the kitchen. |
The American penal system isn't the most pleasant in the world. There's a popular reluctance to spend money on infrastructure or supplies - the tradeoff is usually put as: "money for criminals in prisons versus money spent on hospitals or schools." So conditions have tended to be harsh and uncompromising.
And of course, that's what us visitors were all really eager to see.
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This is the route to the exercise yard for the worst behaved inmates, in the most secure part of the gaol. |
Some of the toughest prisoners in the prison were incarcerated here, and many were 'lifers'; men who had used up their three strikes and were out. There was no chance of parole for a lot of them, so they had nothing to lose. And a man with nothing to lose is a dangerous man.
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And this was the view for 23 hours a day. |
There were over nine hundred - yes nine hundred - murders committed within these walls over the years, only two of which were prison warders. There was a constant fight for supremacy amongst the various gangs, who divided themselves into ethnic groups. Ebony and ivory were definitely not living in harmony.
They segregated themselves at mealtimes, and used improvised prison-made weapons to attack each other. Their ingenuity was incredible. (If only they'd used some of it to make an honest living.) |
The cells could be decorated to the inmate's taste though. |
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Well I suppose you have to have something to think about. |
The harsh conditions they were subjected to resulted in two riots, when hostages were taken. As you may well imagine, the prison warders held at those times were given a pretty hard time, but the inmates also used their periods of power to settle old scores. Of course there were rarely any witnesses to the murders.
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I don't think I'd do very well in here. |
At present one out of every 142 American citizens are in prison, and the death penalty still exists in many states. Within three years of their release, 67% of former prisoners
are rearrested and 52% are re-incarcerated. America spends around 50 billion dollars a year locking people up.
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Only two people escaped from this prison and got clean away. That was about sixty years ago. |
Compare that to prisons in Norway. There, the ratio of prison
inmates to the country’s overall population roughly ten times lower than
that of the United States, and only about 20 percent of
those imprisoned in Norway commit a repeat crime that sends them back to
prison.
Yet they seem to have a much 'cushier' time of it.
It seems counter intuitive, but what's better value for money?
(Or maybe Norwegian prisoners are just big softies.)
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Cross the red line over to the wide section, and you could be shot. Dead. |
It was a sobering tour and it was difficult to imagine surviving in such a bleak place.
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When sentenced to death the prisoner had a choice. The Chair or hanging.They overwhelmingly chose to hang. |
But on a lighter note, as it's supposedly the most haunted prison in America, the Penitentiary is also open for night tours. Visitors are taken in the dark to a cell and locked in. There, unknown to them, someone is already sitting invisible in the shadows dressed in black. After a while he speaks.
We were told that there are often changes of underwear required.
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This lady was a warden here until it closed. She says the clientele are a lot nicer now. |
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