Alice Springs Goal

The jail is not that old. Built in the 1930s, it does not suffer from quite the same degree of thick gray stone hopelessness as older Australian jails. The jail at Alice Springs is more institutional blue, green or distemper coloured walls with the same heavy metal doors and concrete dunnys moulded into the corner of each cell.

Bed frames jut out from an end wall like mini railroad tracks. A cheaply constructed, built in corner table, a polished, stainless steel surface above a square sink poses as a mirror that cannot be broken and used as a weapon. Three square metres for the small ones, four or five for the bigger ones, all lining the dark corridor leading to a communal shower room and another locked door at the end.


The yard outside is red dirt with a few scrubby bushes, surrounded by a 12 foot high fence broken at one end by solid timber gates and topped with lethal razor wire. Any jail looks oppressive, a place to confine human beings who break society's rules. How could it look otherwise? This one could look like any other crudely constructed building in rural Australia and the heat in summer and the freezing cold in winter would signal the confinement. No air-con here, not even a fan.

Its 43C the day I visit and building up to rain. More rain than usual this year, the pressure is palpable. The dust is still overpowering. It looked like Los Angeles smog when I landed at the airport. The same pall, just redder.

The buildings are like cattle sheds or stables, only animals would have more freedom to wander round within the fences. The site was decommissioned by the 1970s and due for demolition. The pioneer women's society looking for a new and bigger home lobbied th council to be allowed to use and restore it. So now the territory's eminent and hardy ladies are housed alongside the ghosts of Alice's criminal past. Quite a contrast that neither the ghosts nor the ladies appear to mind.