Form 7 students attended Shrewsbury Prison on Thursday to prepare them for their learning on Forensic Psychology later this year, and to consolidate prior learning of conformity, obedience, and institutional aggression.
The day consisted of a tour around the Victorian decommissioned prison, where we started with a prison van experience and discussed reasons why seatbelts are not provided, which was followed by the ‘processing’ of inmates. Here, pupils learnt about the duty of care prisons have to protect vulnerable prisoners, which includes segregating them from others to promote their safety.
Additionally, students were informed about the process of searching for contraband and the lengths prisoners would go to smuggle items in, including ways prisons are combatting drones. With technological advancements, body scanners are now available in prisons to spot ingested items, and these revealed 10,000 smuggled items in the first 12 months of introduction.
A walk around the A wing and a short problem-solving exercise enabled students to get a feel for the limited space available in a cell. The tour guide, who was an ex-officer at Shrewsbury when it was an active prison, gave insight into Shrewsbury’s ‘hanging room’. Prisoners who were convicted of murder would be hung at 8 a.m. daily.
After lunch, pupils entered ‘the hole’ escape room. Phones were locked in one of the boxes inside and pupils were covered in hoods and handcuffed to disorientate them. In a pitch-black, single cell, they had to work as a team to escape the room, with their phones. The fastest group escaped within 35 minutes!
A final tour and talk led to pupils being informed about prison statistics; they were shocked to hear that it costs £3 per day to feed prisoners, and £1000 a week to keep them in prison, and that whilst prisoners are trained to become chefs, builders, and personal trainers in prison, they’re only paid £10 per day to restrict financial exploitation of ‘senior’ prisoners, often leaving prison with no money.
A brief discussion around the gender differences in prison (3.8% are female prisoners) led to some interesting suggestions from pupils, including men being risk-takers and women being better at evading capture.
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