Calls for jail to get museum reprieve
The cells of Auckland’s notorious Mt Eden Prison have stood empty for the best part of a decade.
The forbidding gothic-style stone building, complete with turrets and a central tower, once held the country’s most violent criminals and was the location for hangings.
A grade one heritage rating prevents it from being knocked down but security concerns associated with the new prison next door means it remains closed to the public.
Historian Mark Derby’s new book on the prison, Rock College, documents its history, from a rickety wooden structure to the Stone Jug, built with prison labour.
He says at least part of the building should be dedicated to a national museum of crime and punishment. And a report seen by the Sunday Star-Times reveals Corrections once considered it but the pricetag was a deterrent.
Corrections says the site has ‘‘some major health and safety issues due to the age and condition of the buildings’’. The site was therefore ‘‘out of bounds’’, except for maintenance. A request to visit was declined.
The prison has held Ma¯ori leaders, conscientious objectors during both world wars, and the French agents who bombed the Rainbow Warrior.
Derby acknowledges that the prison has a dark history but it should not be lost.
‘‘You don’t knock down a building because terrible things have happened there,’’ Derby says, and points to the notorious Tower of London. Melbourne has opened its historic jail and San Francisco has Alcatraz.
‘‘Mt Eden represents the very worst of the traditions of our treatment of the most vulnerable communities.’’
But despite that, it needs to be preserved and the story of that failure needs to be told, Derby says.
Justice campaigner and former head of prisons Sir Kim Workman supports the idea.
He says he wouldn’t want to see a museum that simply provides a ‘‘vicarious kick’’ to people who want to see a hangman’s noose or the scaffold.
Instead he would like to see an institution that explored alternatives to prison.
‘‘Successive Governments still talk of the deterrent nature [of prisons] but the evidence has shown there’s no proof of it.’’
Author and local politician Sandra Coney spent a brief period in the women’s remand prison at Mt Eden in 1982 after being arrested while protesting at Waitangi.
She was forced to spend her time embroidering blankets with prison numbers and weighing rations of sugar for inmates.
Coney, who later chaired the Auckland Council’s heritage panel, says she has seen other historical buildings left empty and run down.
‘‘They have a term for it, it’s demolition by neglect. It’s wellknown in heritage circles. But unless you find another use for them, the owners tend to let them run down until it gets too expensive.’’
A 2017 report prepared for Corrections by architects, engineers and a market research company assessed the viability of setting up a museum in the prison.
Despite hints of a multimilliondollar price-tag, the report writers provide a glimmer of hope for Rock College.
‘‘This research has identified clear demand for a visitor attraction at the Old Mount Eden Prison site, with industry stakeholders and prospective visitors both expressing an interest in visiting the site and a desire to learn about the prison and the day-to-day life of prisoners and guards.’’