My group immediately decided to focus on psychiatric prisons and how the conditions there can make prisoners come out of jail a lot worse than when they went in. On researching this topic further, we were able to find out some of the shocking conditions that prisoners are treated.
"Prisoners in isolation are confined for at least 22-and-a-half hours a day in cells measuring less than eight square metres. In one prison alone - Pelican Bay State Prison, a remote facility on the north Californian coast - more than 1,000 inmates are confined in single, windowless cells with poor access to natural light. Exercise is limited to an hour-and-a-half a day, alone, in a bare, concrete yard with 20-foot-high walls with only a patch of sky visible through a partially-meshed plastic roof.
Prisoners in isolation don’t have access to work, rehabilitation programmes or group activities on any kind. They are also prevented from any contact with the outside world, and even consultations with medical staff take place behind barriers and visits from family or lawyers take place behind a glass screen. Prisoners are not entitled to regular telephone contact with relatives." a selection of text from this website exposing the awful conditions people are forced to live in.
Some of our initial ideas were to do it by the basketball courts, so that we can stand behind the mesh and pretend that we are inside the prison. We also decided to wear t-shirts that are going to have giant words on them that spell out what medical condition we have and the crime we committed, we will stand in the audience with hoodies on and then step forward whilst taking off the hoodies to reveal the t-shirts.
My most recent idea has been to then introduce the prisoners as if at a circus, so someone starts shouting "Roll-up, roll-up, come and see the most shocking, horrendous creature on the planet! The human!" as the prisoners are behind the fence shaking it, staring out and screeching. As the audience look at us the ring-master can explain that this is how prisoners feel everyday. Isolated, pressurised and segregated from the civilised human world.
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