Necessity and Perversity

Crumlin Road Gaol Execution room
I knew that as soon as I stepped into the reception where people become numbers I could not endure gaol.
As an appropriate punishment or as a first step to change the uselessness of locking people up - 'the naughty step' writ large - felt obvious. You feel that prisoners have surely left the influence of shame far behind.
So stranded between justice and revenge we struggle with what to do.
This Carrollian world was summed up in the execution room, last used in the early 1960's. Condemned prisoners were guarded at all times and had their food separately prepared to prevent suicide - all so that they could be killed by the State.
From a distance it almost make sense.