Lets talk about prison.

On Sunday I stood outside of the Central East Correctional Center in Lindsay, Ontario Canada. It has 1,184 beds (so they say), I guess they regard it as some sort of sleeping facility. There is a 16 foot fence topped with 300 meters of what they call razor ribbon. Razor ribbon has a nice ring to it don't you think? "OH honey you wrapped my gift with razor ribbon how thoughtful!" They claim to have 21 separate security systems and more structural steel than the CN tower.

As I stood outside the facility and took these crappy photos security cameras moved in unison with me and took a few minutes to record the registration plate on my father's truck. I watched a family going inside as the wind stung my face. There was an odd silence and all I wanted to do was to follow them inside and ask them a few questions about who they were going to visit. I wondered what kind of mistakes the residents had made. How may of them were sitting in there thinking about how easy it was to make a mistake, and how many residents were sitting in there wishing they could get out and do what they did to get in there in the first place again.

Prison is such a strange concept. Take people that do bad things, put them all together, give them food, shelter, recreation, education, and discipline. Rehabilitation is the proposed outcome.
A giant hospital for the criminally ill. If only I could experience the atmosphere, taste the food, feel the camaraderie, create social bonds, interact with the fated. Why do I have such perverse curiosities? I stand there in the cold and feel like an outsider. Looking in on a club that I will never belong to. In a sense almost another complete society.

What do the lifers hold as aspiration? What do they think of when they see ten years next? Do they measure time or just stay in the moment each and every day? What is it like to have everything provided for you? I guess it as being all very totalitarian. Living in the realm of George Orwell's 1984. This is the only real metaphor that I can find to experiment with relating to prison life. I find it all very fascinating, except the idea of living in fear of your peers and never knowing when or how someone around you might go off. But the romantic side of the prison concept is interesting and I wonder what effects it would have on a person. What would it do to me if I had to spend a month inside and knew no harm would come to me? To just live inside under the law, eat the food, do the work, breathe the air, and meet the people on the inside. To feel what they emanate. Collecting the experience of their company - even if it was in silence.