Nov. 8-11 of 2018, members of UMPI’s Criminal Justice Club went to Philadelphia. They raised money for the trip with fundraising, selling survival kits and selling raffle tickets. On the trip, the students went to some of the city’s most famous locations. That included Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and the Philadelphia Zoo. Their University Day presentation focused on the haunted house attraction, “Terror Behind the Walls.” The attraction is at Philadelphia’s famous Eastern State Penitentiary.
The students were in groups of three. There are 150 actors as part of the six attractions. The attractions included escaping from a chainsaw wielding inmate, an infirmary, a machine shop, a crazy breakout, zombie inmates and a quarantine room. “I like how involved you were,” sophomore Zach Quint said. “They put me on a dentist table and pretended to clean my teeth,” freshman Devin Martin said.
They also toured the prison during the daytime. “You got to see their techniques of building prison cells,” a student said. “It was fun to see how different it looked during the day from at night,” junior Jackie Peers said. The criminal justice majors also enjoyed some of the educational parts of the tour. “They only had a small circle in the middle of the ceiling for light,” criminal justice advisor, Dr. Lisa Leduc, said. “We were freezing in the building. It was only fall. I can’t think of how winter was,” Hannah Kotz said.
Eastern State Penitentiary closed in 1971. It started being redone in 1991. It is now a historical site in Philadelphia.
The criminal justice club is planning a trip to San Antonio, Texas, next year. Leduc says they try to visit Eastern State Penitentiary once every five-six years. They usually try to go in the fall. The criminal justice club welcomes all students of any major.
