Yesterday, I visited the now closed Kingston Penitentiary (KP) which was once our country's largest maximum prison for the very worst of society and ...it left me shaken.
Opened in June of 1835, it closed the 30th of September 2013 and at its peak, 'housed' if I can use that word, upwards of 500 convicts and an equal number of guards.
I am no bleeding heart, but I quickly sympathized with the masses of prisoners and even the guards who were unfortunate enough to spend any time there.
Other than for the above, I am not going to recite a bunch of facts and figures to exhaust your mind, nor am I going to deal much in the way of descriptives or personalities, rather I am going to focus on my own feelings that surfaced during the 1.5 hour tour.
My background is Law and in 1971 I was slated, along with members of my law class, to visit KP. The course we were taking that required these visits was Criminology where Reform Buzz Words like 'rehabilitation, re-integration, and restitution' were bandied about in place of 'punishment and retribution' . And, for the most part, the institutions we visited that term were consistent with this 'new way of thinking'. But they were Medium and Minimum Security Facilities.
I now know from yesterday that my own personal thoughts on penal reform would have been dramatically altered back then but for the fact that our tour got canceled due to a large and violent riot.
So back to yesterday. Kingston is called the limestone city and in that regard KP fits right in with its limestone construction and high intimidating limestone walls. The iron doors at the entry are a foot deep and the inside walls are a bleak grayish brown...there is no joy to be had in the olde girl's decor or demeanour.
As you move further in you soon reach what the guards called the guts of the beast where, in a very small area for upwards to its 500 inhabitants, ranges of cells reach skyward, all enveloped in a thick wire mesh. It is like a commercial chicken-coop for humans and just as inviting.
It is also soul-destroying. My sister, was part of a KP tour in the days just prior to the infamous 1971 riot and to this day she regrets having accompanied her class. Even these many years later, her face goes pale and she shutters at the memory.
Try as I might rationalize the inmates' living conditions with the evilness of their deeds I come up short, nobody should have been put through what they endured, many for the entirety of their remaining life.
Most would have come to KP young - victims themselves of violent upbringings. To face serious time in such dehumanizing circumstances defies understanding but goes along way to explain why so many of them became mere animals in their captivity.
Where was the compassion? Where were their Human Rights?
Our Tour Guide told us that in the 1800s Charles Dickens inspected Kingston Penitentiary and came away impressed. Rather explains how really bad it was.
As I see it...
'K.D. Galagher'
