IHSS Blog: Prisoner Inventions

Leon Hoang
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
26 March, 2020
 Prisoners design what they can't buy
Usually in prison, there is not much to do besides daily activities so some prisoners must find a way to pass the time. Other times they need essential items and sometimes prisons do not allow the use of some objects for fear of them becoming weaponized. This means some of the prisoners have to create their own items out of unexpected materials. Outside research has determined that only a few objects are allowed in prison, books, musical instruments, gaming devices, and strangely birds as pets. In New York, there was a museum that had a exhibit dedicated to showing items made by prisoners that they could not obtain. This shows the limitation of these people but also the creativity so that they can make these objects. Some examples include; pens, toothbrushes, tattoo guns, dice, and others. To create a pen, the casing was removed on a pen to avoid being melted down to create a weapon, so the inkwell was covered with string and paper to make it easier to hold. Toothbrushes were fashioned by attaching a head of a toothbrush only (Handles were not allowed sometimes for fear of weaponizing) to a rolled up paper form that was covered in plastic wrap, and then securing it in string. Prison-made tattoo guns were built from several materials such as motors, pens, guitar strings and tape to hold it together. Playing dice were made out of pieces of bread which then molded to create the white color, and then was decorated by a pen for the black dots. Since dice were not allowed by prison officials, they had to be made small to be easily hidden. I found this article interesting because it shows the bad living conditions in prison sometimes, as well as showing the creativity of people still emerging, even when imprisoned.
Works Cited


Comments

  1. Micah WeinstockMarch 27, 2020 at 6:47 AM

    Thanks for writing this! It is really cool to see the ingenuity of people in these tough circumstances. I was wondering what you think regarding the necessity of these items, or do you partially think that making these items is a necessary part of these prisoners’ lives to somewhat feel like they have control in the direction of their life? To make it feel as if they still have the ability to be useful?

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  2. Connor KissackMarch 30, 2020 at 6:48 AM

    I also read the same article you read and I thought it was very interesting about how the prisoners were able to create these items with the few resources they have to use. They made so many useful items that it seems so grand. With the creativity the prisoners possess it makes me question how well the brain does during times of boredom and this has answered my question because the brain seems to find more time to do more passionate things.

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