Prison Tourism

Abstract

Prisons, jails, correctional and remand facilities, court houses and other sites of penal confinement are places of popular leisure interest to tourists. A tour or day visit to an infamous or decommissioned prison can provide tourists with knowledge and experiences of penal and justice codes of the past, or the convict history of a destination. As such, prison tourism typically involves heritage-related leisure visits to prison museums/attractions or former sites of incarceration. The sites have been conserved, marketed and packaged to deliver tourist experiences. Former decommissioned prisons are often converted into museums or popular heritage attractions. Notable examples of prison tourist attractions are Alcatraz in the United States and Robben Island in South Africa (Strange and Kempa, 2003). These attractions have become popular tourist experiences. Some prison attractions, such as Alcatraz and Australian convict sites, are designated with UNESCO World Heritage Site status because of their heritage significance.