Conflict of silences.

A place of aesthetic beauty from outside. A place of silence and regret from inside. Eastern State Penitentiary now looks the way it made the prisoners feel: empty, broken, and alone. These wall that used to be crisp white are falling down, the whole structure of the building is decaying. It has all passed. ESP is a decaying island that stands as a reminder of the suffering it caused. When I finally stepped out of Eastern State Penitatiary, back in the sun and back to freedom, I heard crowds talking incessantly and I felt like a cell myself. But I could feel the misery and insanity of these place and it was suffocating. With all the daily introspection on my crimes,I know I would have gone crazy within the first week.

The original idea of build such prison is good. But the truth is, it overlook the prisoners' crazy behavior. I see the overcrowding, the understaffing as a complete disregard for the ideals of this place. Like all the others, it ended up a very expensive storage areas for criminals. It's only a place which made people want to keep away from. These two things (great conditions and to be pentitent) are irrelevant, and may lead people to thinking committing a crime isn't a big deal, because prison isn't too bad anyway. Small sense of satisfaction that it failed because of its unrealistic goals. It seems prisoners became more like objects to be placed somewhere...

than people who needed reforming. I see the ultimate failure of what could have been and excellent way to reform prisoners. It started out as an attempt to reform individulas but even now the corruption and evolution of corruption is visible in the empty space. No cruel punishment so as not to make them feel hated or unaccepted by the society, so that they could return to the society and be decent citizens. Everyone has some good in them and given the opportunity to reflect on their wrong doings in the penitentary they could rediscover the good.