Museum of Crime & Punishment

On May 15 we went to the National Museum of Crime & Punishment. I had been wanting to go for a long time, but the tickets were $20 each and so I was waiting for that day when they would have a nice military discount or something. A few weeks ago Groupon had a 1/2 off deal for the museum and figured this was probably as good as it was going to get.

Unfortunately I my ear was killing me as I had yet another ear infection.  I took a bunch of Advil and that got me through ok.  They went through the history of criminal justice starting with various torture devices and moved on to the hangman's noose and the electric chair.    They had sections about pirates in the 1700s, gunslingers in the west in the 1800s, and mobsters in the 1900s. 

They also talked about Charles Whitman who was the shooter at the University of Texas at Austin in 1966 (the most deadly shooting until the VT massacre in 2007).  We had just watched an episode about him on Dr. G not too long ago so I found this to be particularly interesting.  I got to see Bonnie & Clyde's shot up car again, I had seen it once in Las Vegas when I was a kid at a casino.  There was also a section on serial killers which was unpleasant.

Some of the exhibits were interactive.  They had line-up, a jail cell, CSI lab, and a crime scene.  By the time we reached the CSI stuff we were running out of time on the parking meter and my Advil was starting to wear off so we had to run through pretty quick.  It was a shame because I get into that sort of thing normally.

In the section where they talked about law enforcement there was a pull-up bar (so you could see if you would qualify for the physical fitness part of becoming a cop).  I of course couldn't even do one, but Albert did like 10 just for fun.  The people who were ahead of us (the guys seemed like they were cops) complimented Albert saying that he did more than all of them combined.

Overall it was a pretty good time.  I like all those crime shows like Cold Case, NCIS, Criminal Minds, CSI, Forensic Files, etc. so this museum was right up my ally.  I'd really like to take my cop brother there, I would like to see what he thinks of it.  I'm glad we got to go and even more glad that we did it for 1/2 the price!