Photo via @touchingcheeses/Twitter
September 21, 2021, 2:02 pm
A Twitter thread highlighting a former prison that has been converted into a hotel often frequented by social media “influencers” looking for newer and stranger places to have photos taken of themselves in expensive clothes has gone viral as regular people everywhere wonder why. The photos show a freshly painted prison interior complete with bars on the windows but with arched ceilings and purple lighting, comfortable furniture in the common areas, and bare, creepy bed frames in the tiny rooms that used to be cells that would house multiple inmates.
Featured Video
Hide
The hotel featured in the thread appears to be the Malmaison Oxford, which describes itself as a “boutique hotel” with the tagline “better than your average prison.” The former prison is located in the U.K. and was originally known as the Oxford Castle Prison, with much of the castle being over 1000 years old. Its prison was closed in 1996 and it remained empty for 10 years before it was purchased and converted into a tourist trap and hotel.
Advertisement
Hide
Guests can choose between small, cell-like rooms if they want a more “authentic” experience (if you can call it that) or rooms that have been expanded and/or combined into suites for those who prefer to stay in luxury in the former prison.
The Oxford prison is not alone in its status as a converted hotel. Establishments like this can be found in countries all over the world, including Boston, Massachusetts where the former Charles Street Jail was converted into The Liberty. The hotels typically feature bars and restaurants to keep the voluntary guests happier than the former inmates, with some offering tours of parts of the prisons that have been preserved for gawking purposes.
A good number of people, plenty of whom had no idea about this practice until they laid eyes on the recent Twitter thread, have found the whole idea to be rather tasteless considering the controversial nature of prisons, particularly in the U.S. There is currently a crisis unfolding at one of the nation’s most notorious prisons, Rikers, where conditions have because so appalling that prisoners are dropping dead and guards are refusing to show up to work, leaving those who do show up with triple shifts.
Advertisement
Hide
Twelve inmates have died in Rikers this year alone, with the most recent, Karim Isaabdul, passing away on Sunday at just age 42 within the prison walls while serving time for a simple parole violation. Reports of torturous conditions, as well as these often preventable deaths, have driven calls for the entire prison to be closed down and inmates released rather than being forced to continue to endure clear human rights abuses.
Influencer visitors to prisons-turned-hotels may feel neato sleeping in a place that used to incarcerate people, but they will not be presented with rotting food full of maggots and would likely get a refund if their personal, private toilet backed up, let alone were forced to endure open sewage everywhere. They also have full access to water and will not be beaten by guards or ignored if they have a medical emergency.
Those most likely to be incarcerated in a prison are particularly irritated by the photos of these hotels, with some requesting that the influencers be locked away like they’re a BIPOC community trying to survive.
Advertisement
Hide
Advertisement
Hide
*First Published: September 21, 2021, 2:02 pm
0 Comments