Would you willingly stay like a prisoner for a day or two – or 4? Hundreds of individuals have jumped at simply such an opportunity within the Swiss metropolis of Zurich, volunteering to participate in an open home of kinds for a new jail earlier than the power accepts its first inmates.
Details of the March 24-27 test run are nonetheless being labored out. But Zurich corrections authorities mentioned they acquired 832 functions for an as-yet undecided variety of spots.
The chosen volunteers, who should stay domestically and be a minimum of 18 years previous, are in retailer for an expertise that borders on a actuality TV plot after they enter “Gefaegnis Zurich West” – Zurich West Prison – to test the pre-trial detention and jail companies.
The facility, positioned west of the town’s most important prepare station, is predicted to home up to 124 people who find themselves beneath provisional arrest and to have 117 locations for people held in pre-trial detention.
Their short-term stand-ins received’t have to pay or receives a commission to take part within the jail’s gown rehearsal, and they are going to be handled like inmates in some regards: testing meals, present process consumption procedures, strolling the yard, and so on.
Corrections officers in Zurich says a whole bunch of individuals have volunteered to be faux inmates at its new jail and detention centre earlier than it begins taking in detainees for actual in April.
The volunteers cannot deliver cellphones or different digital units inside. Every participant would require safety clearance, and wish to bear checks comparable to airport screenings. Strip-searches upon entry, nonetheless, shall be optional.
The stunt doubles additionally will obtain a “secure phrase” they can provide the employees to bail out instantly in the event that they get chilly toes or begin to crack beneath the situations.
The trial run this month will allow corrections officers to test the jail’s capability, companies and operations, in addition to to evaluation their cooperation and communication with different authorities, comparable to police and prosecutors.
They additionally hope the drill will assist clear up what they think about misconceptions about how guards, wardens and different workers function in such amenities.
Parts of the police and justice advanced, which is able to home a new jail and detention centre are beneath building in Zurich.
“There are so many penny dreadfuls about life in jail and concerning the demanding work the jail employees does day-after-day that we needed to use this chance to present how we actually work – and the way a lot professionalism and expertise is required to work with inmates,” Marc Eiermann, head of jail administration at Zurich West Prison, mentioned in an e-mail.
He was referring to a largely Nineteenth-century style of sensationalist crime literature referred to as “penny dreadfuls” that helped caricature jail life.
Elena Tankovski, a spokeswoman for the Zurich area’s corrections and rehabilitation companies division, mentioned, by telephone: “Numerous our wardens, they’ve lots of social expertise. They understand how to deal with individuals proper. It’s extra like they need to be on the identical eye degree with them (the inmates)…. They are literally extra a carer than a guard.” – AP
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