The Napier prison was decommissioned in 2003, and in a delightful example of adaptive reuse, it's now a backpackers' hostel.  Something this different merits investigation, so I stayed another night in Napier for the pleasure of being in prison.

kia ora, my ass. It's a prison.

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I was assigned to cell # 26.
 
 
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My window, about two feet above the top bunk.
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Good to see that the proprietors have kept the original welcoming ambience.
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The corridor to my cell.  I had to lighten this image  considerably so that we could see it.  Very dark and poorly lit inside.

The prison and been used as the setting for a reality TV show called Redemption Hill. Redemption Hill was a show that was of a similar line to several of the reality TV shows that appeared in the United States, Europe, and the UK. They take some kids who may have had some infractions of the law, put them in the context where they get screamed at for several weeks, and the kids come out all polite, pleasant, and rehabilitated.

I watched an episode of Redemption Hill during my trip through New Zealand. Most of the show consists of some kids in blacks jumpsuits standing on a red line, and being yelled at by some warden. The kids struck me as being fairly soft, not terribly lethal, or violent. More like the type who would steal a pack of gum or a magazine.

The prison has been left fairly unmodified from when it was used as a set for the show. All the kids had to stand on a red tape line on the floor, and these tape lines were still on the floor of the prison. There are also some boards with some type of 12-step support thinking, and I suspect the kids had to learn to recite it. One of those boards is visible in the photo immediately above.

(Click on the image to open a new window of the TVNZ site for Redemption Hill.)

 
Here's the site  for the prison: