Legal Studies and Sociology
On Wednesday the 15th of July, both the Legal studies and the Sociology class went to Pentridge Prison and the Police Museum. In Sociology we are studying deviance and Legal Studies last semester learnt about criminal law.
When Pentridge Prison was originally built it was made of wood. there was a house for people who were considered more deviant than the rest of society and they were sent to be in a hut with black all over it to roast inside as punishment. As time went on they found out that the near-by creek actually held bluestone, that’s what was used to build the Pentridge that still remains in Coburg today. It was designed like a medieval castle with arrow slots to make it more dangerous looking and to affect the psychological state of prisoners. Passing through the entrance, we went down to A/H division, H division was notorious for harsh punishments that today would be considered torture; to add to the horrors, we found out that when prisoners were being put in H division, they had special uniform that was different to all the other inmates. They had to have uniform with three dots on them: Heart. Back. Head. Reason for this was because if they tried to escape those three lethal shots could take them out completely. As we went on through H division and the history behind it we learnt about Ronald Ryan and why he was the last man hung in Australia, this reason was because his wife was going to divorce him, so he escaped and he had apparently murdered warder George Hodson even though the community and others in Australia claimed it wasn’t fair because they wanted to know why it was all on Ryan and couldn’t have been the other man with him Peter Walker. This is one of the many stories we heard while at Pentridge, we also found out that the notorious Chopper Read had been in Pentridge and had gotten an inmate to take off his ears.
After Pentridge and finding out the horrors that lay there, to lighten up the mood a little bit we went to the police museum, and we were able to see all the different animals and how all different branches of police work. There was a section for forensics and evidence, we were able to play a game on how to use evidence to accomplish and get the best result for a sturdy case. I played all three games and learnt a lot about how not all evidence is useful for cases, I learnt about cases that happened in Australia and I didn’t know about it; like the girl in stripped pyjamas or also known as pyjama girl. I saw how they profiled people in the earlier days of policing, as well as the different uniforms used in different terrains and scenarios. We also saw a wrecked car that happed to be a car that blew up because of a bomb in 1986 out the front of the Russell street that unfortunately took the lives of two officers, even though most of the trip had serious and heinous crimes as well as serious topics overall it was insanely helpful to see how the justice system works from two different perspectives and how deviance was sorted at Pentridge. It was an incredible experience and so interesting to know the history of the police and the history of Pentridge.
By Madz Lukey
