Weapon [Sharpened toothbrush]
About this object
This object is part of the Prisoner Weapon Collection at Maitland Gaol, the following description here and below relates to the collection as a whole.
Prisoners have historically fashioned weapons for both aggressive and defensive purposes against prison officers, guards, and other prisoners. The favoured weapon of prisoners across the world is colloquially known as a ‘shiv’, a slang term for a sharpened or pointed implement used as an improvised knife-like weapon. It is versatile, being able to be fashioned from almost anything.
The Prisoner Weapon Collection consists of a number of individual and highly representative items including many shivs. Sharpened toothbrushes, modified garden and workshop tools, blades and kitchen implements are amongst the items. Also included are examples of rudimentary weapons fashioned from accessible materials such as small lengths of pipe and rubber gloves.
While individually the Maitland Gaol collection is not historically significant, most of the items being relatively contemporary, the collection is highly representative and authentic to the NSW prison system having been made by and confiscated from prisoners in Maitland and Cessnock Correctional Centres. Some items remained in the site following its closure while others have been donated to Maitland Gaol by confiscating prison officers for their interpretive and illustrative capacity.
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Object detail
The collection is primarily made up of a variety of sharpened implements, colloquially known as ‘shivs’, a slang term for a sharpened or pointed implement used as an improvised knife-like weapon. Examples of these implements include sharpened toothbrushes, modified garden and workshop tools, blades and kitchen implements. Also included in the collection are examples of rudimentary weapons fashioned from accessible materials such as small lengths of pipe, rubber gloves, string and wire, and tape. While not currently in the collection, weapons such as handmade replica guns, knuckle dusters, and bows may be found in ‘shake-downs’ of prisons, undertaken to find and confiscate prisoner made weapons. The shiv is the favoured weapon of inmates in prisons across the globe. It is famous for its versatility - a shiv can be anything from a glass shard with cloth wrapped around one end to form a handle, to a razorblade stuck in the end of a toothbrush, to a sharpened spoon. Some prisoners have even sharpened the ends of pork chop bones to make them into weapons. While no records exist of the prisoners from whom these items were confiscated, the materials and items from which they are made may provide an insight into the likely location where the prisoner worked within the prison and would have had easier access to the particular material, base tool components etc.
While the collection is not entirely made up of items from Maitland Gaol, most having been sourced from Cessnock Correctional Centre, the items are highly representative of those associated with Maitland Gaol and were assembled to establish a significant representative collection for interpretive purposes. Some items remained in the site following its closure in 1998 while others have been donated to Maitland Gaol by confiscating prison officers for their interpretive and illustrative capacity.
The collection exhibits the ingenuity and versatility of the prisoner population in their ability to adapt materials for alternate purposes. They provide examples of the need for the prisoner population to seek aggressive and defensive weapons, indicative of the circumstance in which they find themselves within the prison environment. As such they highlight the psyche of the prisoner population.
It has been recognised that this collection generates a particular interest in visitors to the attraction, who have little understanding or knowledge of the psychological make-up of the prisoner. Visitors are constantly amazed at the ingenuity and capacity of the prisoners to design and craft such items, and their capacity to do so within the highly restrictive prison environment. While the examples within the collection are relatively contemporary, they are representative in form and function of comparable items in other collections which date to much earlier times.
Statement of Significance completed by Gordon Sauber, 2022
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