A new format for killers: why Australia's ultra-modern maximum security prison looks more like your office. New format for killers: why an ultra-modern maximum security prison in Australia is more like your office Prison Australia
Correctional center in the Australian city of Goulburn local residents called simply "Sphere". It enjoys the reputation of the most terrible prison in the country. It is here that the most hardened criminals - rapists, murderers, sadists - serve their sentences. British journalists were able to see the gloomy institution from the inside.
The correctional center in the Australian city of Goulburn, 90 kilometers from Canberra and 195 kilometers from Sydney, is simply called “the Sphere” by locals. And also a “human zoo”. Australia's most dangerous criminals - mostly murderers and rapists - are kept in these cage cells.
The prison building in Goulburn was built in the 19th century. The establishment will soon celebrate its 150th anniversary.
Each wing of the prison houses about 30 prisoners. The criminals are divided according to nationality: natives of Asia, the Middle East and Australian aborigines live separately from each other. Murderers and rapists are kept together in a separate wing.
Inmate Matthew De Grucci is serving a 28-year sentence in the Sphere for the murder of his mother, brother and sister. He recently took part in an attack on two prisoners, which resulted in the victims being sent to the prison hospital with broken bones and brain damage.
Serial killer Ivan Milat, sentenced to six life sentences in 1996, tried unsuccessfully to escape from the Sphere.
Thomas Hudson Wilson was Milat's partner in the failed escape. He ended up in the Sphere for brutally beating a woman with an iron crowbar. Wilson smashed the victim's face and broke his arms and legs. As the judge said at the trial, she will never be able to fully recover from her injuries. It didn’t take long to catch the criminal: due to the complete lack of hair on Wilson’s head and body, the victim easily identified the criminal.
Bassam Hamzi is perhaps Australia's most protected criminal, an Islamist and leader of the organized crime group Assassins. After several years of his stay in prison, it turned out that Hamzi successfully persuades other prisoners to convert to Islam and successfully manages the affairs of a criminal group while behind bars.
Hamzi kept a poster with the emblem of his group "Assassins" - "Killers" - in his cell.
Gate to Hell is the main entrance to Goulburn Correctional Centre. Behind these gates is both the main prison building and the special Supermax building for the most dangerous prisoners. This is where Bassam Hamzi is serving his sentence.
Mohammed Skaf was just 17 years old when he followed his older brother Bilal into a youth gang that committed a series of brutal rapes of young Sydney women.
Bilal Skaf is now 31 years old. he is serving a 33-year sentence in the Sphere on charges of several rapes.
Tension between prisoners in prison always exists; joint walks in the caged courtyards often end in fights and violence. The photo shows homemade weapons taken from prisoners by guards. Knives and sharpeners are made from any available items - combs, brushes, any metal objects found in prison.
The murderer Leith Marchant, serving time in the "Sphere" under the influence of Bassam Hamzi converted to Islam. Now he sleeps on the bare floor of his cell and, as the guards say, he is constantly hatching plans to escape.
Mark van Crevel killed three men, disemboweling and decapitating his first victim.
Vestor Fernando went to prison for the murder of nurse Sandra Khor. Already behind bars, he killed his own cousin, who also ended up in the “Sphere”.
Serial killer Lindsay Rose was caught making duplicate prison door keys. as it turned out, he was preparing to kill the guards.
The main building of the Goulburn Correctional Center was built in 1884.
Australian beauty queen Anita Cobby was kidnapped by five criminals after her shift at the hospital where she worked as a nurse. Anita was taken to a vacant lot in northern Sydney, brutally raped and killed, almost completely cutting off the girl's head. This crime was committed in 1986. Three accomplices to the murder, brothers Michael, Harry and Leslie Murphy, are still serving time for the murder of Anita Cobby at Goulburn Correctional Centre.
20-year-old Janine Balding was raped and killed on one of the railway stations Sydney in 1988. her killer, former drifter Stephen Jamieson, now has a permanent residence in the "Sphere".
Victims of serial killer Ivan Milat. Basically, they were young tourists traveling around Australia. Milat is very sensitive to the conditions of his detention: for example, when the sandwich maker was taken away from him, he created a huge scandal and even went on a hunger strike, which, however, lasted less than two days.
Killer Janine Balding Stephen Jamieson, nicknamed "Shorty": the height of the killer and rapist is only 147 centimeters. He is in
Anita Cobby's killers, the Murphy brothers: Leslie...
...Harry...
... and Michael. The brothers, sentenced to life imprisonment, will not leave the Sphere for the rest of their lives.
Goulburn is located in the south of Australia, in New South Wales, 90 kilometers from the country's capital, Canberra, and 195 kilometers from Sydney.
Farhad Qaumi has repeatedly tried to cause unrest in prison. So, he planned to flood the cell, calling on his fellow prisoners to join him, break out from behind bars and start killing the guards. He had already prepared a homemade knife to kill the guards when he was caught.
And these weapons were taken away from visitors who tried to smuggle them to prisoners during visits. Of course, bringing weapons into the prison is strictly prohibited. If a visitor is found to have any weapons, they are confiscated and the offender is immediately arrested.
Murderer Guy Staines converted to Islam in prison.
Mentally disabled killer Craig Richardson, having made a sharpening from parts from prison exercise equipment, tried to start a fire in his cell in order to lure the guards into it and attack them. As a violent prisoner, Richardson was transferred to the Supermax building for high-risk criminals.
Guards at the Goulburn Correctional Center seize drugs, bladed weapons, mobile phones and SIM cards from prisoners and their guests almost daily.
serial rapist Bilal Skaf in the visiting room with his parents - father Mustafou and mother Baria. Later, Baria was caught trying to carry out of prison in her socks the notes that Bilal had sent with her to freedom, bypassing prison censorship. After this, Baria was prohibited from seeing her son.
Ronald Priestley, a murderer serving time in the Sphere, has already taken part in several riots and attacks on prison guards.
The picture shows police removing the bodies of serial killer Ivan Milat's victims from Belanglo Forest in New South Wales. Milat himself will never leave the walls of the Sphere.
The Soviet Gulag was by far the largest experiment in history in the development of territories through forced labor. But it had predecessors - not only the American South, but also the entire continent-prison. However, already in the middle of the 19th century, England realized that the labor of prisoners was slowing down the Australian economy, and they stopped sending convicts there.
ELENA CHIRKOVA
The war between North and South in America ended with the defeat of the southerners by the Yankee army and the abolition of slavery in the southern states. The slaves were freed, that is, these people were not only freed from slave labor, but also removed from wages and are now forced to look for hired work. They don't really need money for money. Especially when there is an alternative. “I almost decided that I would hire convicts on the sawmills. I once talked with Johnny Galleger ... about how difficult it is for us to make these black hazels work, and he asked why I did not take convicts. It seemed to me a good thought. ..- says Scarlett O'Hara, the main character of Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind. - You can contract them to do sheer nonsense and feed them cheap... you can force them to work as much as necessary, and no Bureau of Free People (monitored the observance of rights blacks after the abolition of slavery.— "Money") will not swoop down on me for this like a swarm of wasps, and will not shove all sorts of laws under my nose and interfere in what does not concern them." When it comes down to it, even Scarlet, who during the years of the war and post-war devastation turned into a tough entrepreneur, cannot put up with the abuse that convicts endure from the sawmill manager, who wants to squeeze out maximum income.
To the edge of the world
Scarlett O'Hara was not the first to implement the idea of the Gulag as an economic organization. Since the 18th century, Great Britain has been doing this, turning Australia and nearby islands into a colony-settlement. Initially, the purpose of colonizing this continent was ship timber and growing flax in a suitable climate, from which sails were made. England imported both from Russia through Riga. There was no suitable wood in Asia, it was impossible to grow flax there, so to build a ship in India, one had to drag materials halfway around the world. Supplies from Russia depended on the relations between England and France and the sympathies of the Scandinavian countries.
In 1784, France received permission from Sweden to create an outpost near Gothenburg, at the exit from Baltic Sea. In this regard, we remembered Norfolk Island, a thousand miles from the eastern shores of Australia. This island was discovered by James Cook in 1774. Cook reported that in Norfolk and neighboring islands I saw pines up to 60 meters high with trunks almost a meter in diameter and that flax grew there. The flax samples he delivered have already been tested: the canvas made from it turned out to be very durable. In addition, in 1783, the American War of Independence ended, and England lost its most important colony.
The first proposals for the colonization of Australia and the surrounding islands involved sending the English poor there. There was no shortage of them due to the depression caused by the lost war; they intended to use the Chinese as slaves for the colonists. Slaves were definitely needed. Only free land and free labor could attract settlers to the distant—at that time nine to ten months of journey—continent. Another idea won - to reduce the load on English prisons and ferry thieves and murderers to remote territories. In an economic sense, they were supposed to replace slaves.
It was decided to establish colonies on the shores of Botany Bay (the modern Australian state of New South Wales with the capital Sydney, a city that grew out of the first settlement) and on Norfolk. The presence of French ships in the region and information that the navigator Count de La Perouse had already landed in Norfolk forced them to rush to capture the island. However, the local pine turned out to be unsuitable for building ships because the wood was too soft and fine-fibered (excellent ship pine was found in Tasmania, but several decades later). The economics of the “project” did not turn out at all as planned, however, the colony on Norfolk grew, becoming in fact a prison with very harsh conditions of detention.
They developed a business plan: criminals would be sent to Botany Bay in ships of 600 people each; to organize the settlement will cost about £19 thousand (£2.6 million in modern money), its costs in the first year will be about £15 thousand, in the second - about £7 thousand, and in the third it should reach self-sufficiency .
The first shipment took place in 1786, with 736 people loaded on board. There were no political figures among them, nor those who had committed serious crimes such as rape or murder. The picture of the contingent resettled in Australia during the years of this practice was something like this. 80% were convicted of theft, and between half and two-thirds were re-sentenced. The vast majority are urban residents; peasants, who were in greatest demand as labor, accounted for only a fifth. 75% were single, with one woman for every six men. Average age- 26 years. Most were illiterate—more than half could not even write their name.
Floating Prisons
For transportation in record time, an appropriate fleet was built - ships with a well-insulated room equipped with bunks. There was about 50 cm of space per prisoner; three or four were assigned to one bunk. By no means two people - it was believed that sleeping in threes protected against homosexual contacts. Australian writer Marcus Clarke (1846-1881) described the insides of the floating prison in his novel “Convicted for Life”: “There were twenty-eight bunks, each with six people. The bunks ran in double tiers on both sides of the prison... For one bunk there were five square feet and six inches. However, the latter were cut down due to lack of space; but even with such crowding, twelve people were still forced to sleep on the floor."
The height of the hold was approximately human height. There was no light other than natural light - no candles were provided to avoid fire. During a storm, the hatches were battened down, and no fresh air entered the hold, but good weather walks were allowed. On the Malabar, on which Rufus Dawes, the hero of Clarke’s novel, who received a life sentence, is being transported to Australia, the exercise compartment is arranged as follows: “The middle part of the deck had a strange appearance. It seemed as if someone had built a cattle pen there; masts and on the poop, a dense bulkhead with openings, entrances and exits ran across the deck from one bulwark to another. Outside this enclosure was guarded by armed sentries. And inside, about sixty men and boys in gray sat, stood, or walked with an indifferent look in front of a row of shiny gun barrels. prison clothes. They were all prisoners of the English king..."
And these are still divine conditions. Dawes was sent to Australia in the second half of the 1820s, when hygiene standards were at least somewhat respected. The fate of the first batches of prisoners was much more difficult - they fared much worse than the slaves transported from Africa to the United States. For example, out of 499 “passengers” on one of the first carrier ships, only 72 reached their destination in relative health, the rest died or became seriously ill. By the way, the high mortality rate was beneficial to private contractors who delivered prisoners: food was loaded in England according to certain standards, and if the “mouths” naturally decreased along the way, the surplus could be sold at ports in Latin America or in Cape Town. Yes, in those days people went to Australia through Latin America.
To reduce mortality, they began to assign doctors to the ships who were not accountable to the private companies that took over the transportation of the contingent, and the companies themselves were paid extra for its successful delivery. The bonus for each prisoner delivered alive was 20-25% of the base price of transportation - an amount paid regardless of mortality.
Hard labor with lobsters
The first ships heading to Australia took on board a supply of everything necessary for life for several years ahead - there was no guarantee that the next ships with provisions would safely reach the destination of the journey. It is only in Daniel Defoe's fairy tale "Robinson Crusoe" that an Englishman survives on desert island, feeding on pasture. In Australia, convicts who fled to the interior of the mainland died of starvation, or returned and voluntarily surrendered to the authorities. If the next ship was late, the ration often had to be cut to the bare minimum. In the early years, it got to the point that prisoners and officers had equal rations. The only significant addition to the imported provisions were lobsters - off the coast of Australia they lived in abundance, so a brigade of prisoners could catch about five hundred in an evening. Australia began to independently provide for the basic needs of its inhabitants around 1810 - 23 years after the first landing of settlers.
Convicts were required to work, an embodiment of the idea that punishment should consist of work rather than time spent in prison. In the first years, all those serving time worked for the state, and the harvest was considered its property. The grain was supplied to state stores, where the colonists purchased goods according to standards according to the rationing distribution system. However, by the beginning of the 19th century, agricultural production and trade had become a private matter in Australia, and in general, up to 90% of convicts subsequently worked in the private sector. Those who were busy public works oh, they could mine coal, develop bays - build breakwaters or lighthouses, as well as build prisons, barracks, roads, lay tunnels, build bridges.
Scientific sources consider work in coal mines to be one of the most inhumane: hard physical labor, lack of daylight, dampness, rock slides, lack of air and occupational diseases of miners - asthma and rheumatism. However, it is even more difficult to collect and burn shells for limestone, the industrial deposits of which did not exist near Sydney. The collector worked barefoot in the water, stepping on sharp shells, carrying heavy baskets, the smoke from the burning shells corroded his eyes.
However, Marcus Clark's novel mentions worse work. The cruel prison governor, who had personal motives to hate Rufus Dawes, “gave him... fifty lashes, and the next day sent him to grind cayenne pepper. The convicts feared this punishment most of all. Acrid dust got into the eyes and lungs, causing unbearable torment "For a man with a wounded back, this work turned into torture."
By law, a prisoner's working week was limited to 56 hours, but production standards were also established, and those who did not fulfill the plan had to work more. In 1800, for example, in a week it was necessary to clear an area of one acre (about 0.4 hectares) of forest or thresh 18 bushels (about half a ton) of grain.
People were allowed to have their own vegetable garden; this was especially encouraged during the first hungry years of colonization. Prisoners could even be released early from community service - at three o'clock in the afternoon, for example, so that they could work for themselves.
It was not forbidden to free time cut down forest, clear areas, etc., receiving a small fee for it. And skilled artisans - jewelers, tailors, shoemakers - could work in their specialty and earn quite a lot, up to £4-5 (£500-700 in modern prices) per week. After release, former prisoners had the right to choose a business of their choice.
Origin of capital
The first free inhabitants of Australia were military men - guards in places where prisoners were stationed and representatives of the embryonic government. It was believed that there was no trust in other residents on the prison mainland. The continent was slow to fill with free people; even in the 1820s, prisoners made up 40% of Australia's population. Free were both former prisoners who had completed their sentences, and ordinary migrants. Some came due to the fact that they were members of the family of a convicted person, but there were a minority of them due to massive refusals of permission to resettle (it was necessary to prove that the person who had served his prison term could support his family) and because the price of a ticket to Australia, which was unaffordable for workers.
Others were going for the "long pound." There was a reason to find a new homeland: as much land as you wanted - a free resident of the colony was given 25 acres (10 hectares) upon his request; land in Australia was worth almost nothing for about four decades after colonization began. Ten prisoners were assigned to the future farm - at first this contingent was the only source of hired labor in Australia. At first, no payment was collected for the use of prisoner labor, and the state took care of their provision. So it tried to attract wealthy settlers.
But quite soon, already in 1800, the costs of maintaining prisoners working in the private sector were shifted to labor tenants. They had to pay the worker, provide him with clothing and housing. It was specified in detail what linen and bedding should be provided; in particular, the prisoner had the right to receive a blanket. Food and clothing could be borrowed from government stores, paying off at the end of the year, after the harvest. The private employer also covered some medical expenses.
The minimum contract period was 12 months. If it turned out that the farmer was unable to support workers, they were taken away and fined for each day until the end of the contract. A prisoner could be taken away even if he was used unproductively or was secretly subleased - this was prohibited. Private individuals were not allowed to punish prisoners; this was the prerogative of the state.
A prisoner who performed the functions of a free man's servant could sit with his owners at the same table. Tea, sugar, rum and soap were considered signs of prosperity; they were used to reward workers for hard work. Of course, tobacco was also valued - perhaps the main equivalent in prisons at all times.
It was not forbidden to use prisoners as servants. On the one hand, this contradicted the idea of productive work for the benefit of society in order to atone for guilt. On the other hand, in class society there was an understanding that a London butler would not go to Australia in search of work, and a rich man was not ready to do without him. Accordingly, there was a demand for educated prisoners. Here, against the background of thieves, who were usually illiterate, those convicted of fraud stood out, for example, bank clerks who forged bills. Strangely enough, there was also a demand for thieves. Wealthy Australians recruited security from them - the robber had a good idea of how to protect the house from theft.
According to the law, the rights of those who were initially free and those who had served their prison term were the same. In practice, former prisoners, as well as free people, not connected with the military infrastructure of the colony, were discriminated against. The military could choose the best site, the best prisoners - these were considered people with experience working on the land, they paid less for tools and seeds, and in addition, they could take out loans against wages and use them as investment capital. In particular, they bought land from released prisoners, who received plots for free—few of them were agricultural workers and knew how to run a business profitably. The fragmented land areas were gradually consolidated. Exactly according to Lenin: capitalism grew out of small-scale production.
For three years (from 1792 to 1795), the colony was de facto ruled by the military, who monopolized the purchase of goods delivered from the metropolis and their resale. The main cargo was rum, which served as a universal equivalent - the colony did not dry out completely. This is another source of the first Australian fortunes.
Slavery as a brake
Some large fortunes were formed quickly, but Australia developed slowly. It suffered from a lack of capital, from isolation, long distances, a small population, the conservatism of the penitentiary system, and most importantly, from the specific nature of the labor force, which had absolutely no incentive to work. Very reminiscent of the situation in the southern United States in the first half of the 19th century, where slavery hampered economic development (Money wrote about this - see "The Cost of Uncle Tom", http://www..
There were also differences. In the United States, a planter had to purchase a slave, and the cost was high, reflecting not only demand, but also the cost of purchase and transportation. The crown transported English prisoners to Australia at its own expense and distributed them to free colonists for free, which significantly reduced the cost of labor. But free labor and free land have their drawbacks - free or subsidized distribution of resources creates distortions in the economy: surplus products are produced, excess assets grow. In Australia these were, for example, flocks of sheep. Livestock farming could provide as much meat as the country could not eat in principle.
The reasons for stopping the deportation of prisoners were the growing dissatisfaction with the implementation of the “project” in the British political environment in the 1830s, as well as the improvement in the state of the penitentiary system and the opposition of Australians, who began to consider the continent as their homeland.
As for England, the crime rate there has not decreased, which led to the conclusion that moving to Australia for potential lawbreakers is a weak threat. In addition, the economics of the “project” stopped working: local prisons became more efficient and it turned out to be more profitable to keep prisoners there, at least with short sentences. It was also understood that the system creates distortions in the Australian economy. Since they still wanted to populate the continent, they placed emphasis on material incentives for volunteers. For example, in 1837, a healthy settler under 30 was given £37 (approximately £3,700 in today's money), plus £5 for each of his young children and another £15 for each teenager.
No more than 20-25% of criminals convicted under the heaviest charges worked in shackles; the rest were in a settlement, or, as they said in the USSR, “in chemistry.” They could, to some extent, make decisions regarding their work and learn a new profession. They were better prepared for life in society after release than those in prison.
In the 1830s, the wages of freed convicts in Australia were higher than those of similar professions in the mother country. English prisoners began to view transportation to a distant country as a chance in life, as an opportunity to get rich. Especially after gold was discovered in Australia in 1851. This is one of the indirect reasons for the final refusal to move prisoners there. There was no point in transporting criminals for free to places where many wanted to go of their own free will, and at great expense.
The view in England that Australia is a land of opportunity is reflected in Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations. Its main character, Pip, who came from a simple family and lost his parents at an early age, showed mercy to the escaped convict Abel Magwitch at the age of seven. He was recaptured and sent to Australia for life. Magwitch kept a good memory of the orphan and decided to spend what he earned in Australia incognito on turning him into a gentleman. After some time, Abel Magwitch, despite the threat of the death penalty, returns to his homeland to visit Pip, who by that time lives in the “mansions” that “the lord does not disdain.” Abel Magwitch reveals to Pip who his anonymous benefactor was, and in meager words tells how he made his fortune: he was in the service of a cattle breeder, worked as a shepherd “in the distant pastures,” and the owner left him money when he died, and then Magwitch ran out of money. term, and he “started little by little to do something for himself.”
In Australia, the wealthy, including former prisoners, advocated for the further transfer of convicts; they demanded cheap labor. Free hired workers were against it; they were afraid of competition from migrant workers and a decrease in their income. Their other argument is that, according to statistics, many of those released became repeat offenders: the proportion of newly convicted people in Australia among the entire population in 1835 was ten times greater than in England. The opinion of the working masses prevailed.
Convicts were no longer transported to New South Wales in 1840, and to Van Diemen's Land (the original name of Tasmania), which was turned into a maximum security prison, in 1853. The last landing of prisoners in Western Australia took place in 1868. Since 1787, when the first transport with criminals arrived in Australia, 825 “special flights” were sent there - an average of 200 prisoners on each board, that is, about 165 thousand people were forcibly resettled. According to statistics, only 7% of those who lived to see liberation returned home.
It appeared thanks to the discovery of new lands by Captain James Cook, a navigator who proclaimed New Holland (now Australia) as British possessions. Soon, in 1786, it was decided to make East Coast Australia is a place of exile. The following year, the First Fleet sailed from the shores of England to establish Australia's first colony, called New South Wales. Other ships followed him, and soon many convict settlements were formed in Australia.Eastern Australia was declared a British territory in 1770, and the first colony was founded on 26 January 1788. As Australia's population grew, six self-governing colonies were established within Australia.
On January 1, 1901, the six colonies formed a federation. Since that time, Australia has maintained a stable democratic system of government. Australia's neighbors are Indonesia, East Timor and Papua - New Guinea from the north, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu from the northeast, New Zealand from the southeast. The shortest distance between the main island of Papua New Guinea and mainland Australia is 150 kilometers; however, from the Australian island of Boigu to Papua New Guinea is only 5 kilometers.
The name "Australia" comes from the Latin. australis, meaning southern. Legends about the "unknown" southern land"(terra australis incognita) come from the time of the Romans, were a common place in medieval geography, but were not based on real knowledge. The Dutch used this term for all newly discovered southern lands from 1638.
The name "Australia" became popular after the publication of A Voyage to Terra Australis by Captain Matthew Flinders. Governor McQuire of New South Wales used this name in correspondence with England. In 1817 he recommended this name as the official one. In 1824, the British Admiralty finally approved this name for the continent.
How did immigration to Australia begin?
In Great Britain, the 18th century was marked by significant social changes, which led to an increase in crime rates. The main reason for this was extreme need. To stop this, the authorities have issued strict laws with severe penalties. At the beginning of the 19th century, approximately 200 crimes were punishable by death. “Even the most petty theft is sentenced to death,” wrote one traveler. For example, one 11-year-old boy was hanged for stealing a handkerchief! Another man was found guilty of insult and the theft of a silk purse, a gold watch and approximately six pounds sterling. He was sentenced to death by hanging. The execution was replaced by lifelong exile. In that terrible era, approximately 160 thousand people suffered a similar fate. Women, as a rule, together with their children, were sentenced to 7-14 years of hard labor.However, at the beginning of the 18th century, the authorities passed a law that in many cases made it possible to replace the death penalty with deportation to the English colonies in North America. Soon, up to a thousand prisoners a year were being sent there, mainly to Virginia and Maryland. But, having declared themselves an independent state in 1776, these colonies were no longer willing to accept British criminals. Then they began to be sent to terrible floating prisons on the Thames River, but they were also overcrowded.
The solution appeared thanks to the discovery of new lands by Captain James Cook. In 1786, it was decided to make the east coast of Australia a place of exile. The following year, the First Fleet sailed from the shores of England to establish the first colony called New South Wales. Other ships followed him, and soon many convict settlements were formed in Australia, including on Norfolk Island, located 1,500 kilometers northeast of Sydney.
"Many of the 'criminals' deported to Australia were pre-teens," writes Bill Beattie in his book Early Australia - With Shame Remembered. As the book says, in one case a court sentenced a seven-year-old boy to “lifelong exile in Australia.”
First wave of immigration to Australia: founding of convict colonies.
At first, transferring to the Australian colonies was a real nightmare for prisoners placed in damp and dirty ship holds. Hundreds died en route, others soon after arrival. Scurvy claimed many lives. But over time, doctors appeared on ships, especially those carrying female prisoners, and the mortality rate dropped significantly. Subsequently, with the improvement of ships, the journey time was reduced from seven to four months, and deaths became even fewer.
Shipwrecks posed another threat to life. The British ship Amphitrite, five days after sailing from England, was still within sight of the French coast when it encountered a violent storm. Tossed mercilessly by the waves for two days, the ship ran aground a kilometer from the shore on August 31, 1883 at five o'clock in the afternoon.
However, the crew did not make any rescue attempts and did not launch lifeboats. Why? For one simple reason: so that the prisoners - 120 women and children - do not escape! After three horror-filled hours, the ship began to sink, and people began to be washed out to sea. Most of crew and all 120 women and children died. In the following days, 82 corpses washed ashore, and among them was the corpse of a mother who hugged her child so tightly that even death could not separate them.
But it must be said that the situation of some prisoners was not so bad. After all, for some people in Australia, in fact, better prospects opened up than in their homeland. Yes, that part of Australia's history was extremely contradictory: it combined cruelty and mercy, death and hope. It started in Great Britain.
The Settlement of Australia: When Death is Desired.
The Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane, decreed that the worst criminals should be sent from New South Wales and Tasmania to Norfolk Island. “There these scoundrels will lose all hope of returning home,” he said. Sir Ralph Darling, the next governor, vowed to create "conditions worse than death" in Norfolk. This is what happened, especially during the reign of John Price, a governor of noble birth. Price “guessed the thoughts of criminals with deadly accuracy, and this, coupled with strict adherence to the law, gave him some kind of mystical power over the convicts.” For singing, walking too fast or not pushing a cart of stones hard enough, a convict could receive 50 lashes or 10 days in a cell with up to 13 prisoners and where you could only stand.Only priests, as spiritual persons and therefore inviolable, could openly condemn such inhuman treatment. “No words can describe how cruelly the convicts were treated,” wrote one priest. “What is scary to even think about was done with complete impunity.”
Australian History: A Glimmer of Hope.
With the arrival of Captain Alexander Maconoch in Norfolk in 1840, the situation improved somewhat. He entered new system ratings, which took into account how much the convict had improved, provided rewards for good behavior and gave him the opportunity to earn freedom by accumulating a certain number of ratings. “I am confident,” wrote Maconochie, that with the right methods, any criminal can be corrected. A person’s intellectual abilities are quickly restored if one directs his thoughts in the right direction, treats him humanely and does not deprive him of hope.”Maconock's reform was so effective that it was subsequently widely used in England, Ireland and the United States. But at the same time, with his innovations, Maconoch dealt a strong blow to the pride of some influential people whose methods he rejected. It cost him his place. After his departure cruel treatment in Norfolk resumed, but not for long. In 1854, thanks to the priests, the island ceased to be a place of convict settlements, and the exiles were transported to Tasmania, to Port Arthur.
Port Arthur, especially in the early years, also terrified people. But still, the treatment of convicts here was not as cruel as in Norfolk. Corporal punishment was abolished almost completely here in 1840.
As Ian Brand wrote in his book Port Arthur - 1830-1877, George Arthur, the strict governor of Tasmania, wanted to secure his colony's reputation as a "place of iron discipline." And at the same time, Arthur wanted every convict to learn that “good behavior is rewarded, and bad behavior is punished.” To do this, he divided the convicts into seven categories, starting with those who were promised early release for exemplary behavior, and ending with those who were sentenced to the hardest labor in shackles.
When Exile to Australia Was a Blessing
“For convicts, with the exception of those who were sent to Port Arthur, Norfolk ... and other similar places when conditions there were intolerable,” wrote Beatty, “the prospects for the future in the colony were much better than in their homeland ... Here the convicts had the opportunity to live a better life.” Indeed, convicts who received early release or served their sentences realized that in Australia they and their families were waiting for better life. Therefore, after liberation, only a few returned to England.Governor Lachlan Macquarie, an ardent defender of freed convicts, said: “A person released from prison should never be reminded of his criminal past, much less reproached for it; he should be made to feel like a full-fledged member of society, who has already redeemed his guilt by exemplary behavior and has become decent.” human." Macquarie backed up his words with deeds: he allocated freed exiles land, and also gave them some prisoners to help them in the field and with housework.
Over time, many hardworking and enterprising former convicts became wealthy and respected, and in some cases even famous people. For example, Samuel Lightfoot founded the first hospitals in Sydney and Hobart. William Redfern became a widely respected doctor, and Australians owe many architectural structures in Sydney and its environs to Francis Greenway.
Finally, in 1868, after 80 years, Australia ceased to be a place of exile. The modern society of this country bears no resemblance to those terrible years. Partially preserved convict settlements are of historical interest only. Less horrific evidence of the era also survives: bridges, buildings and churches built by convicts. Some of them are in excellent condition and are still in use today.
Once a huge prison, Australia now ranks first in the world's happiness rankings.
The history of modern Australia began in 1606, when the reckless Dutch captain Janszoon landed on an unknown land and named it “New Zealand” - in honor of the Dutch province.
Here this name did not take root, but later it went to the islands east of Australia. The Dutch did not take root either: the local population met them with hostility, several sailors died. Having given the order to raise the anchors, the captain wrote in the ship's log: “Nothing good can be done there.”
This conclusion was confirmed by his compatriot Captain Karstenz: “These shores are unsuitable for life, they are inhabited by poor and pitiful creatures.”
The largest prison in the world
Well, the Dutch have always been good sailors, but absolutely no warriors. The British are a different matter. James Cook was sent to extend the power of the crown into unknown lands - he did. With fire and sword, the English colonists won food and water for themselves on the Australian coast. The Dutch probably saw this only as confirmation of Captain Janszoon's words.
In those years, it already became clear that Great Britain had bitten off more land for itself than it could actually develop. The only use that has been found for Australia is a beautiful prison, well isolated from civilization (thousands of miles of water).
Already 18 years after Cook’s first visit, those who would later be delicately called “stowaways on Her Majesty’s ships”—convicts—landed ashore. Several tens of thousands of embittered people, often seriously ill, dying at hard labor, expelling the Aborigines and infecting them with diseases unknown in Australia - became the basis of the future of Australian society.
FOR REFERENCE : Now, in the 10s of the 21st century, Australia ranks first in the world happiness rating Better Life Index from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. GDP per capita is off the charts for 45 thousand dollars - a place in the world's top ten, from big countries Only the USA is ahead. 84% of Australians say they experience positive emotions “much more often” than negative ones.
How the hell did they do this?
At one time, Australia (like New Zealand) began to rise on gold and wool. Convicts began raising sheep, and later it literally became a national occupation (“Australia rides a sheep”) and until the end of World War II provided the main influx of funds into the country. Suffice it to say that in the 1880s, a unique “dog fence” was built here, more than 5 thousand kilometers long (more than enough to block off the European part of Russia from north to south), protecting pastures from dingoes.
Like New Zealand, Australia experienced a gold boom in the 1870s. But if easily accessible deposits quickly depleted, then in general Australian reserves have not yet become depleted. This is a real world pantry: almost the entire periodic table is mined here.
Australia secured its de facto independence from the British crown thanks to... meat freezing technology. After the opportunity arose to export not only wool, but also other parts of sheep, a country with a well-developed agriculture I could just ignore London. And the British were wise enough not to start a military operation far away: the smell of the First World War was already in the air.
And they had little chance of winning. After all, it was the peculiar contingent of the first settlers that played a role in the success of Australia. Courage, endurance, perseverance, ability for physical labor were originally Australian trump cards over pampered Europe.
There was no happiness, but the war helped
And then the world wars thundered, which greatly enriched Australia, which was far from conflicts, both with an increased demand for raw materials and with human capital: thousands of qualified specialists left here from mobilization, battles, and devastation.
It must be said that not everyone was accepted: until the 1970s, the concept of “White Australia” dominated, and, say, Asians were actually denied entry. Only when the level of education in Asia rose to a more or less decent level was the ban lifted - and now people from China, Indochina, and India play an important role in the country.
Rich mineral resources, the wonderful climate of the southern coast, multiplied by the harsh Protestant ethic (its traces can still be traced in the country, although the majority of its inhabitants have long been no longer religious), helped turn the inhospitable continent into a prosperous land. There are quite a lot of problems in Australia, as elsewhere - now, let’s say, it’s the opposition to Muslim expansion (more precisely, the way of life that migrants bring with them), but it’s hard to doubt that Australians will cope with this scourge. This is not Europe, everything is more serious and simpler here.
Port Arthur is located on the Tasmanian peninsula in Australia. This small town is famous for the fact that until 1877 there was a convict prison here, which was considered one of the most terrible prisons in the world. It housed the most notorious criminals, including those who had already escaped from other prisons. The prison, built in 1933, housed approximately 13,000 inmates, 2,000 of whom died there.
The Port Arthur prison was a complex of 60 buildings. There were 80 solitary confinement cells, a hospital morgue, a Catholic chapel, Cathedral, in which representatives of all faiths could pray, a psychiatric hospital, a bakery, a laundry, a kitchen, the commandant’s residence and much more. Most of the prison buildings were damaged during forest fires, the wooden buildings were destroyed by them, only the stone ones remained.
Now the Port Arthur prison is accessible to tourists. They can explore what remains of the prison buildings. Within the walls of the prison, actors act out scenes from the lives of prisoners. Excursions are also conducted around the Island of the Dead, where the prison cemetery is located, tourists are also shown former colony for Point Puer boys, where they were sent from the age of nine.
Coordinates: -43.14929800,147.85251300