Prison Tour Debrief

Katie D.

November 16, 2010 - 8:51 PM

On November 1st, my GTF class "Justice, Reconciliation, and Community" went to tour the Oregon State Penitentiary. I wrote about the tour in this blog: http://www.isupportuoregon.org/my_duckstory/blog/katie_d/looking_through_the_walls I have since had the opportunity to debrief the experience both with the class as a whole and with individual students. Field trips of any kind are very rare in the university setting, and visiting a correctional institution is rarer still, so I found our conversation about the prison tour to be extremely interesting and helpful in understanding experiential education and the advantages of taking class out into the "real world."

The tour was in two parts. First, we saw the actual grounds of the prison: the cell blocks, the yard, the intensive management unit (IMU), and the execution chamber. For the second part, we spent an hour in the Activities center, talking with a group of incarcerated individuals in small groups, hearing their stories and asking questions about life in prison. To debrief the experience, we talked about the two questions separately.

Many students expressed the weirdness, the zoo-like quality of touring a prison. You walk down the cell block and have the awkward choice of peering into the tiny cells, or of looking at your feet or the tour guide, trying not to make eye contact. We talked about that feeling, and the alternative ways of handling it. We talked about our own sense of being observed, and the response we received. One of the men I spoke with in the second half discussed the tours, and said both that they were unwanted and disruptive and that he thought they were really important so that the public could see what prison really looked like. The feelings of discomfort were shared throughout, and I think are really important when trying to understand the overall experience.

The IMU was even more difficult to see. It is a U-shaped block of stacked cells, with dim lighting and no windows. It is a "prison within a prison," the punishment for violent or otherwise illicit behavior while on the inside. It was loud and altogether an alarming place, obviously one of high stress for the guards and of horrible seclusion and oppression for the inmates. It is a difficult thing to describe if you have not been there, and continues to be the most violently alarming place in my experience.

The execution chamber was also a powerfully moving place. Students reported again on the "weirdness." There are two small adjoining rooms: one is the chamber itself with the gurney, straps laid out and ready; the other is a tiny holding cell where the condemned man spends his final seventy-two hours. A procedural list is posted, with the precise final steps of the man's life laid out in single, short sentences. The reports of the execution chamber was that it was "sterile," "creepy," and "felt like a public bathroom." Indeed, with its whitewashed concrete, the continuous small walls and florescent lighting, it did somewhat resemble a tiny public bathroom. I think we all left there feeling powerfully unsettled. Two men had been executed in that room, on that gurney, within my lifetime. Thirty-three more are waiting.

Everyone's favorite part of the tour was the hour we spent talking with the inmates on the activities floor. They were selected because of past participation in education programs, public education efforts, and activities. Some were within five years of release. Others were serving life sentences. They answered the students' questions about their lives on the inside: about their daily routines, their jobs, the culture, religious experiences, education, the visitors they had, and their future plans. Several groups talked at length about gangs and gang membership on the inside, and the violence that was very common, especially as gangs jockeyed for space in the cafeteria. They shared very personal stories, and also general prison life stories. Some were talkative, others more quiet. Some were anxious to hear from the students--about their classes or their experiences at the University. Some wanted to talk about the Ducks football season, and about the "normal" stuff in life. Other groups delved deeply into painful memories of pasts and crimes committed.

The group reported an overwhelmingly powerful experience from the prison tour. They found the inside guys we met to be insightful and generous with their stories. They expressed a sense of connection with the men, or a sense of distance and the overwhelming quality of the complete institution of the prison. The experience complicated some strongly-held opinions from the class, either of stereotypes held or theories now questioned by the witness.

After hearing the responses to the prison tour, I feel more strongly than ever that UO classes reach beyond campus into the wider community. We must do everything we can to foster dialogue, and to ground our theorizing on experience.