We recently got a chance to tour the New Prison Museum in Turin, Italy. This prison, when it wqs first constructed, used a much more modern method for dealing with people who broke the law. Instead of dehumanizing them, the prison was designed to properly reform prisoners. This allowed many of the prisoners to be able to start fresh once they got out and many managed to turn their lives around. This was also among the first prisons to have an entirely separate wing for the women to be apart from the men.
This was turned back around when world war two broke out and the axis powers had control of the prison. People who were sent here were brutally punished for anything that the axis powers were against. The prison had many of its modern features removed for more primitive resources and there was nearly 10 prisoners to a cell, which were initially designed for only 1 prisoner. This was in an effort to break the spirits of those held captive there before their exicutions, according to our guide. Many soldiers had also been held and exicuted there during the war. Unfortunately, only a small handful of information of the soldiers could be recovered due to the axis powers destroying a lot of the prisons documents.
After the war, the prison was returned to its former glory with a few upgrades. These included redesigned outdoor areas to allow for better social health of the prisoners. Most of the prison was solitary for prisoners, but there was common areas such as a chapel they could be taken to for mass.
All in all, it was a really interesting experience and a great opportunity to learn about the earlier modern prison system. I am grateful for the opportunity to have learned about the development of modern criminal reformation systems. I am also grateful to have learned about some of the occurances that don't get too much attention due to the major historical events they occur during.
- Zacharia Houghton
I really appreciated our guide explaining how the goal of the prison was to reform its prisoners. With access to a school and job training while still in prison it really helped set them up for what their life could be like after prison. I really enjoyed hearing the story of the prisoner who was released and started their own company that offered jobs to people who got right out of prison. I think it really shows that their original goal of rehabilitation works and how those prisoners went on to provide more support to other prisoners.
ReplyDeleteI find that the abhorrent behavior of the Nazis at this prison to be a very tragically typical example of their usual strategy to control via cruelty and direct disregard for their prisoner's minimum standards of living and is a great example of why I think examples of the horrible things they did should be preserved, so that we can be constantly reminded of just how terrible humanity can be.
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