When I first read that the Springfield Municipal Jail was asking for volunteers to test out its new facility, I immediately emailed the editor at the local paper, the Register-Guard. For whatever reason, the idea of spending the night behind bars was extremely alluring to me, and apparently the same was true for hundreds of Springfield residents.
Why is that?
As a full-time graduate student, I couldn’t delve into this question as much as I’d have liked to. But I did come across studies by academics who looked at jail tourism sites like Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in Alcatraz) and Alcatraz. Maybe our fascination with jails harkens back to images of old Westerns and outlaws being reeled in by roguish Sheriffs. Whatever the case, the authors found that staff at these exhibits were doing a better job of discussing the realities of daily prison life as well as how the prison industrial complex has had, at best, a questionable affect on society.
The volunteer inmates at the jail didn’t get such a nuanced view. The theme of the night, pounded home again and again, was that the jail would be a pretty miserable place to stay, a place where there was nothing to do but to sit and think about what you’d done.
What wasn’t mentioned was that, as a misdemeanor jail, it would be housing criminals accused of pretty minor offenses. The police chief argued that many of those caught committing minor crimes were probably on their way to committing felonies, if they hadn’t already. I wonder what others think of this line of reasoning.
Also, about half of inmates at jails across the country are technically innocent. Many are waiting to go before a judge, while others are waiting for trial because they couldn’t afford bail.
The police say having such a draconian jail will make criminals think twice, but I can’t imagine a car burglar about to bust open a passenger window suddenly stopping and saying to himself, “Wait a second. There’s no cable at the Springfield jail! I’ll miss South Park! I better rethink these life decisions I’m making!”
If I had more time, I would have liked to discuss these issues with the other men in Pod C. Over the course of the night, I think we were all still absorbing everything. I wonder if any have been left with the same lingering questions I have.
Excerpt from the story:
“. . . The door is slammed shut, and it clangs with a sickening, plangent thud. Morphew flinches ever so slightly.
Overall, there’s a palpable sense of excitement that pervades the air.
Many of the Pod C guys admit that previous to tonight, they had images of dusty Old West jails swimming in their brains. There’s something almost romantic about spending the night behind bars, standing in the place of John Dillinger or Babyface Nelson.
But there is nothing romantic about Pod C. It’s devoid of color. While daylight supposedly seeps in through the window and grated hole high in the ceiling, mostly it’s just you under the harsh fluorescent lights in a sprawling room of sharp right angles and hard metal. . .”
Read the full story here.
