Prison museums: learning punishment

Abstract

Penal tourism is a way for the public to learn about punishment. Decommissioned prisons transformed into museums allow visitors to view for themselves the size of cells, forbidding architecture, and artefacts of incarceration. This study’s contribution to the scholarship of prison museums is a layered international account of visitors, staff, experiences, and narratives at three prison museums: Fremantle Prison (Western Australia), Robben Island Museum (South Africa), and Eastern State Penitentiary (United States of America). Data was collected at each of these sites through a pre- and post-exposure survey administered to visitors, interviews with prison museum employees, and observation of the presented exhibits and tours. The findings from this study include: visitor demographics, changes in attitude expressed among visitors, the prison museum experience and issues surrounding the accuracy and authenticity of these prison museum sites, present and absent narratives within tours and exhibits, and the contrasts between presenting penal heritage and current issues in corrections. Prison museums offer an excellent opportunity for visitors to be educated about incarceration, however issues of interpretation and directed narratives may result in visitors being presented with a shallow representation.