Submitted by Timothy D’Agostino on the 2015 winter session program in Australia sponsored by the College of Engineering…
After spending two weeks in Melbourne, Australia, and taking our midterm exams, my study abroad group took a short plane ride to Tasmania. The flight was only about an hour long, but I quickly found that Tasmania is a unique part of Australia. Over the course of the few days that we spent on the island, we had the opportunity to see a great variety of landmarks and beautiful scenery (such as at Wineglass Bay), as well as learn more about the history of some of the places we visited.
One such place was the Port Arthur Penitentiary built in 1843 (originally as flour mill), but then converted to a penitentiary in 1857. Parts of the vast property have been dismantled or left as ruins, but some of the buildings and pathways have been maintained and can be toured. In fact, there is so much to see that your entrance ticket entitles you to return the next day and continue exploring. As I toured the property and learned about the prisoners’ living conditions and daily lives, I was reminded of a book I read in high school, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, in which the author, Ted Conover, becomes a corrections officer at Sing-Sing prison. Through the book, readers learn what life is like within a high security prison and how that environment affects prisoners and correction officers alike. As I walked through the grounds of this historical prison, Conover’s writing jumped back to me and I was forced to think about the prison system and how much has changed, and also, how much has not. Port Arthur was relatively advanced in its emphasis on providing educational opportunities for prisoners and had a library composed of several thousand books. Nevertheless, the prisoners were exploited and they were forced to work in heavy chains while carrying logs for the timber industry. Port Arthur also had a Separate Prison, which was composed of four wings of solitary confinement cells. The tour guide shared with us stories of the escape attempts made by the men desperate to leave Port Arthur and the recidivism rates among the men who were legally released. Hearing their stories and seeing the solitary confinement cells made me think of how our history is in some ways still intertwined with that of this ruin and how nations all over the world, including our own, are still grappling with the issues associated with incarceration. I wasn’t anticipating it, but this short visit to Port Arthur during my study abroad program in Australia made me ask new questions about problems facing my own country and what we might learn from the prisoners and officers that once lived at Port Arthur.
