Doing Time

The first week that I was wandering around Perth, I stumbled into the Info Center in hopes of finding a map. There was an American couple talking to the visitor staff, seeking advice on what to do with two days in Perth. Top suggestion: go to the Freemantle Prison. Four months later, I finally made it there. 

The prison was built by convicts in 1850 and remained open until 1991. How fun would it be to be shipped out of Europe, to the world of unknown Australia, where you then had to build YOUR OWN PRISON that you would then be trapped in?

 

 The day I went, it was quite busy so I had to wait an hour for the next available tour. They had some little museum rooms with the typical prison museum stuff. Old uniforms, stories of escapes, description of a day in the life of a prisoner.

 

I only went on the Doing Time tour and didn't go on the torchlight or Great Escapes tour (I'm saving those for when I go back with all my visitors :)). But we did learn about the last big escape attempt on January 4th, 1988, when they set fire to the entire roof. It took $1.8 million dollars to fix, and three years later, the prison closed. With the amount of revenue from tours and events, I'd say it was money well spent.

 

They have restored some cells to what they would have looked like at different time periods from the convict days until the 20th century. They didn't change too much. I couldn't imagin being a prisoner here as recently as the year my brother was born!

 

Like many minorities, there was an unequal representation of Aboriginals in the prison. Lucky prisoners got to use their art skills they were being taught to brighten their cells a bit.

I was surprised that the prison had such a nice chapel. People still rent it out for weddings. Seems a little morbid to me, but as out tourguide cheekily retorted, "It's appropriate. Marriage is a life sentence afterall." There was a balcony where the Anglican women from the women's block would get to come for service which always caused quite the ruckus. The Catholic women stayed in the women's block for Mass. Needless to say they had a lot of converters.

It seemed appropriate to me to have the 10 commandments front and center in a prison.

"You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or ass, or anything that belongs to your neighbor". 

The warden took a little liberty and changed the 6th commandment from "thou shall not kill" to "thou shall not murder", given the number of hangings that were at the prison.

 

After an hour of playing tourist, I was ready to play local and finished my day trip with my book and gelato on Cappuccino strip.