Dangerous Beauty: The Art of the Shiv

T

TantoHead

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May 20, 2006
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If this has been posted already or if this is the incorrect forum, I apologize in advance.

I found this link fascinating to a series of photographs of collected prison shivs. Some show rather deadly but amazing ingenuity and I'm starting to understand where the Strider knife low ergo/high retention handle design concepts may have originated :D

(just kidding)

From the article:
The shivs shown here, from the collection of designers Chris Kasabach and Vanessa Sica, were confiscated more than twenty years ago from New Jersey’s Rahway Prison (now East Jersey State Penitentiary), a maximum-security facility that houses more than 1,500 inmates serving sentences of twenty-five years to life. The designers saw each shiv in their collection as a piece of evidence, and over time, came to identify a kind of unique design pathology
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The slideshow is worth checking out, IMHO.
 
thanks for this.I saw a brief preview of this on the history channel a few months ago and wanted to see the whole thing.:thumbup:
 
Keith Montgomery said:
The word beauty doesn't come to mind when I see those shanks. Lethal yes, beautiful no.
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I have seen some real examples of these and i dont think the beauty isnt in the shiv itself as much as in the ingenuity.

Neccesitty is the mother of invention.

Who would get the idea to melt candy wrappers together until they had enough plastic to sharpen into a stabbing implement under normal enviornments?????:confused:

I think there is an inherent beauty in anything that can take a human life.
 
Another reminder of the ignorance (and futility) in attempting to disarm a populace.

Interesting reminder.
 
There were days when I would find that many during searches on just one shift. We found one guy running a production line of shanks, ice pick style. We've also found zip guns, small bombs, even stuff like home made electric motor driven tattoo guns.

One year the fad was to have the inmates customize/low ride their small, department approved radios. They'd have "power booster switches", pink fuzzy upholstery, an extra speaker. The parts typically came from new guys stolen radios.

The ability to get things from the outside is there too. Things they weren't supposed to have like bic style lighters ( you'd be amazed what all they can do with one).

Prisons are small cities with almost everything available, crimes, banking loans ( loansharks), guys who rob or strong arm other cons etc, etc, etc.

I worked 15 years in a state prison ( mens prison described as "youthfull offenders", 18 to 25, all felon inmates medium to close custody). It wasn't uncommon to see guys with 2 or 3 life sentences there, though believe it or not typically more trouble came from short termers/parole violaters. The lifers incidents tended to be more serious in nature when they did happen.

It would have been really stupid to underestimate the inmates. Their skill sets reflected the outside worlds same age group. They also had a lot more time to plan, scheme, work at things than the average prison guard working 8 hours and rotating positions. Joe
 
Reminds me of the Paper Crossbow episode of Mythbusters. Some of the weapons (like the bolt action repeating .32 pistol made from plumming) were amazing.
 
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