Sunday, December 1, 2013

Justice and Police Museum

Today I went to the Justice and Police Museum here in Sydney. The museum is housed in three buildings just a block off Circular Quay (the harbor). The building used to serve as the Police Court, Water Police Court, and Water Police Station. It has standing exhibits along with a temporary exhibit called Crooks like Us. This temporary exhibit shows photos from police files from the early 1900s. It uses the photos to both understand police and crime activity but also the people and city as it was in those early decades. At the beginning of the exhibit they show 3 videos, one about photos of murder scenes, one about mug shots, and one about crime scene photos showing various areas of the city....

Some interesting things from the video:

The typical mug shot as we know it today (one photo from the front, one from the side) were only used in Sydney for the first few mug shots taken ever, maybe the first 15 or so. After that, they allowed criminals to pose as they'd like so all mugs shots were different moving forward. This was really fun to see in the video. I'm guessing they are back to standard mug shots now....

Another interesting thing from video - as they were going through old crime scene photos, there were rarely any bystanders in the background. The photos were, however, full of bystanders when they were not of a crime scene but of a car accident or fire.

Many of the old crime scene photos were not labeled well or not accompanied by notes so it was not clear what they were depicting. The narrator did a very good job of deducing what may have happened from clues in the photos. I loved this since I'm really into crime shows and it was like CSI but only with the crime scene photos.

Here are some photos with description below:



Various police swords from the years.


Holding area in the court room where prisoners were held. It can seat up to 15 people. Because the criminals were in a cage, there was a presumption of guilt.


The court room. The prisoner's holding area is just to me left as I'm taking this photo.


A jail cell. This room can hold up to 12 people.


Example murder weapons used in police training. The photo below is more of the same.



The brown leather whip on the left was used to punish juvenile criminals in the late 1800s. The skinnier white whip on the right was used on adults. The white whip has small knots in it to ensure the skin is broken when used. This form of punishment was discontinued before the turn of the 20th century due to public outcry against the brutality of this punishment.


Weapons confiscated from inside prison from the 1990s. The weapon the far right was made with a scissor blade. The weapon in the middle, to be worn around the fingers, has felt padding to protect the fingers of the person wearing it. Nice for whomever is going to use it, but I would not want to get hit with that!

Later in the evening, after the museum closed, they were hosting a movie event, Kino Kabaret. Apparently Kino Kabaret happens is cities all over the world. It is an event for movie makers have 32 hours to make a short film, including filming and editing. The 32 hours limit ends when the event begins so people are literally working on their films up until the last minute. There were a few rules for this event - the film cannot exceed 5 minutes, it must mention Kino Kabaret in the credits, and this must be the first time the movie has been shown. If someone violates these rules in their video they are then given challenges for their next Kino film such as "Must take place at sea", "Monster Movie", "No humans". There were a few people who violated the rules and it was funny to see what they are being challenged with for next time, although I won't be able to see how they live up to these challenges. It would be fun to go to another Kino Kabaret event in another city, or Minneapolis. This is not a bad goal for the rest of my travels....

Kelsey and I met a few cool Australian guys, Anthony and Jaime, at the movie event. They recently spent 2 months traveling the US followed by another couple of months in Europe. One of them may have a good connection for me in Southeast Asia so I'll be following up with him and I'll let you know if anything comes of it.

That's all for tonight. Chat later!

Best!

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