Ok so… I… went to prison…

You: “EEEHHHH??????”

…on a field trip with my class.

You: “=| …wanker”

Now I can’t quite remember which prison it was.  But it reminded me of some crazy ass old school asylum from some thriller movie.  We weren’t allowed to take photos, which sucks…

We went inside, and into a little room where the warden would meet us. The Warden proceeded to talk to us about the history and some other key facts about the prison (he spoke in Japanese, translated by Prof. Scott).  Some fun facts that I remember him making is that most of the Prisoners couldn’t read! I found that kinda interesting.  There were also currently 592 convicted prisoners, and also 114 prisoners who WEREN’T CONVICTED.

You: “EEEHHHH??????” – again

Yeah they had a bunch of people locked up in prison who weren’t actually convicted of anything, but were awaiting possible conviction (or a possible release).  I remember in one of Prof. Scott’s classes, he mentioned that the Japanese could throw you into prison if you weren’t co-operating (by “not co-operating”, i mean denying that you did something – even if you didn’t do anything), for up to either 30 days, or 90 days (my memory is failing me) pending the investigation – BUT then after 30 (or 90) days, the police could extend your stay in prison if they feel necessary.  Seems kinda wacky, but that’s how they roll (or “rooru”) here in Japan.

Another side note is that, adding the numbers, there were 706 prisoners total, which i know by comparison at least in America, is quite a small prison.  Not to pick on America, but we were given figures… which I forgot… But perhaps these small numbers allow the prison to work they way it does.

So before we left to see the rest of the prison, we all had to wear face masks.  The Japanese are absolutely anal about infection etc.  And its VERY common to see people walking around or even working with masks on.  So masks affixed, we began our tour.

The first thing I noticed was that this place smelled like ass.  Ok, well not literally, but it smelled bad.  I can’t even put my finger on what it was, but it kinda made my insides churn.

We were shown around the prisoners work stations, the first of which was the sewing factory.  It was odd to see these thieves, arsonists, rapists and murderers sewing away on quilts.  Something Prof. Scott pointed out was that there was one (or two) prisoners with a kind of badge suggesting they were higher up or almost supervising the manufacturing.  There were also a couple guards in each room.

Guards in Japan are unarmed (and i believe this is the same in a lot of other countries too), for the logical reason that if one were to be taken hostage, no arms could be stolen to be used against the guards.

It was all really interesting.  The prisoners were all well behaved, very Japanese of them.  Oh and there was one point where there were 5 prisoners in this hallway we were walking down.  So the guards made them all turn and face the wall so we could walk passed.  It was pretty interesting.  I mean, it doesn’t sound like much, but it was cool.

We also saw their cells, they were tiny.  They were about half the size of my dorm room, housing 2 people (or 3 people due to overcrowding).  There were also bigger cells, housing up to 10 people which i also found interesting.  I’ll just skip ahead to after the tour just for a moment, but someone had asked a question to the Warden during a Q&A session about why there were 2 different sized cells, and how do they decide who goes in where.  The warden simply replied that if the prisoners are of a sociable type and get along with people then they get the bigger room.  But if they’re a bit anti-social, then they get the smaller room.  Logical enough.

We also got a tour of the outside.  Uh… nothing really to report except they did have a couple of outdoor cells used by prisoners who are being punished for their actions within the prison, ie. they spend their outdoor “exercise” time alone.  There were no prisoners in there whilst I was there.  Nor were there any outside at all – bar about 3 of them who were working as groundskeepers, accompanied by guards.

A lot of the prisoners were old, which struck me as odd for some reason.

Also the showers were a hot bath which was very Japanese of them.  Someone asked why the prisoners get a hot bath as opposed to just showers, and the reply was simply “tradition”.  Interesting.

Everything seemed to be in order, and it appeared as though everyone knew their place.  The prisoners just keep to themselves and work and respect the guards.  The prisoners earn just over 1000 yen (10-13 Aussie dollars) a day for their work.  They are fed a certain amount (not much) of food depending on what type of work they do, if a prisoner were to refuse work or fall ill and not work, then they get the lowest amount of food.

It was all very interesting.  Photo’s and video would really be awesome in this post, but it really was unfortunate that I couldn’t take any.  I just had a look on Google Images but unfortunately wasn’t able to find anything that resembled the prison I went to.. Poo..

This really doesn’t do the experience justice, but I hope you guys found this post interesting.

Ciao for Now!