The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Design

How should we evaluate recent efforts to make prisons more healthful and humane institutions? While many of these endeavours are impressive, creative, and have been shown to have positive impacts on people living and working within prisons, it is also possible to locate these ventures in a very long line of efforts to construct the perfect prison, a slippery goal that changes over time. This chapter reviews some of the more famous attempts (within the United States) at perfecting the prison, focusing on how reformers, designers, administrators, politicians, and others imagined perfection when speaking of incarceration. Equally important, this chapter also examines how and why these efforts failed. This chapter closes by considering what lessons we can draw from this long line of ill-fated attempts at perfecting the prison.

There is extensive literature delineating the diversity in custodial design. Inherent in this literature is the assumption that these differences in architecture have a tangible effect on individual outcomes. A few studies have produced empirical evidence for an association between a facility’s architecture and inmate behaviour (primarily misconduct). However, the logic of why and how differences in custodial design impact behaviour are often not articulated. Incorporating concepts from multiple disciplines, this chapter proposes a theoretical framework for the mechanisms by which the design of facilities is anticipated to impact an individual’s physical and mental well-being, as well as larger systemic correctional goals. Beginning with a review of the goals associated with corrections, as well as the theoretical justifications for the impact of design on behaviour, it then explores the potential mechanisms that facilitate the relationship between architecture and individual behaviour. Finally, the findings from a small qualitative study are presented to supplement theory with real-world observations.

This chapter describes two personal experiences of being part of teams planning and designing new prisons: one in Auckland, New Zealand; one in Limerick, Ireland. In many ways, the prisons were at opposite ends of the penal spectrum in terms of their geographic location, their function, and in relation to their divergent paths from commissioning to the outcome. Only one of the facilities is likely to turn out to be an example of imaginative, humane thinking in contemporary prison design, even though both prisons were initially conceived as such. Put simply, where Auckland East fell foul of a highly risk-averse and security-obsessed corrections culture, Limerick has benefitted from a prison service prepared to take risks and commission a design that is underpinned by research evidence and international best practice. Nonetheless, the experiences that I relate in the chapter underline that, however good the intentions of prison commissioners, planners and architects, the design of the built environment can only go so far in creating a rehabilitative culture in prison.

This chapter is a critical review of contemporary architectural practice in custodial design, using the cornerstone concept of critical prison design. The text is in three main sections. First, presenting the intrinsically problematic nature of prison design and relating it to the reference literature. Second, spelling out the implications of addressing prison design critically. Finally, discussing seven case studies, which, to a greater or lesser degree, successfully address critical prison design. In our view, engaging in critical prison design implies addressing three fundamental concerns. First, actively pursuing the visibility of current and visionary penitentiary realities through incorporating prison design into general design discourses. Second, using design to generate significant improvements in the living conditions of inmates, workers, and visitors. Third, problematising confinement and actively working towards decarceration. This last concern lends itself to two avenues of design-based research: innovative and experimental design proposals to challenge dominant views on detention; and a push for the adaptive reuse of existing custodial facilities, suggesting socially desirable uses for the prison’s heterotopic qualities. The chapter’s fundamental aim is to present the possibilities (and limitations) of architectural design as a critical practice, while actively contributing to a progressive debate on custodial spaces, institutions and practices.

In this chapter we describe hybrid architectures of penal facilities in the countries of the former Soviet sphere. Between the river Elbe and the Pacific coast, communism replaced the emerging modern cellular prison with the ‘Soviet penal model’. Based on principles of collectivism, prisoner self-government, and re-socialisation through compulsory labour, huge numbers of camps and correctional labour colonies saw prisoners housed in communal barracks in a securitised compound, outside of which was another set of barracks for armed guards who would march prisoners out to work in forests, farms, and construction sites or to the camp’s industrial zone. With the collapse of communism, the majority of European former-communist countries joined the Council of Europe and moved, supposedly, towards the ‘western’ penal model. However, Soviet legacies, especially the built infrastructure of the prison estate, have been difficult to overcome. The resulting emergence of hybrid architectures of detention constrains the reform of management practices and dynamics of prison society. Using case study examples at different ends of the architectural spectrum, we describe the emergence of hybrid forms that are uniquely contrary to a linear conception of penal development towards the model western-type prison.

Custodial facilities, such as jails or prisons, are complex environments that are influenced not only by their physical design, but by their residents—staff and inmates alike. As such, it is often difficult to isolate which elements of the institutional environment may impact behaviour or general wellbeing, and whether those elements are working as intended. With an emphasis on U.S. prison systems, this chapter explores the most common challenges in conducting research—and establishing causality—on custodial architecture. Three key difficulties are explored: (1) operationalizing custodial design and its intended outcomes, (2) collecting comprehensive data, and (3) distinguishing the effects of the physical environment from other influences. The chapter then concludes with a discussion of several potential solutions that might allow future studies to surmount those challenges, including establishing a consistent definition of custodial design and its elements, the collection of more detailed custodial data, and methods for distinguishing the impact of design from other potential influences.

On June 6, 2015, Kalief Browder, a 22-year-old Bronx, NY native, hung himself as the result of the mental and physical abuse that he endured over a three-year period at Rikers Island. Although his suicide was committed 2 years after his release (without conviction), the fact that his earliest attempts began while incarcerated—as well as the fact that he developed severe depression while in Rikers—elucidated the onset of severe psychosocial issues that many inmates experience while behind bars. From legal scholars to environmental psychologists to architects, experts in a variety of fields have begun to examine the multifaceted aspects of our penal institutions and facilities, uncovering the flaws that permeate this complex system, and recently the conversation has begun to focus more on the design of the correctional facilities themselves. The purpose of this chapter will be to critically explore and problematize the various sociospatial factors that generate psychological and physical trauma within correctional institutions and to propose some of the most viable evaluative methodologies for identifying the flawed spatial and aesthetic qualities of custodial environments. Techniques for the critical psychosociospatial evaluation of these environments will be explored, primarily with consideration of an enhanced post-occupancy evaluation (POE) methodology.

Two frameworks have been offered to provide general standards of practice for those designing custodial facilities. O-T-I design—open, transparent, and inclusive—is an early-stage theoretical framework tying perceptions of spatial authorities and the justness of their spaces to perceived “welcomeness,” while the S-L-S framework was introduced to connect correctional space, layout, and sensory landscape to overall psychological wellbeing. The purpose of these undertakings was to provide custodial architects a design guide to organize their work and policymakers a rubric by which to evaluate it. This chapter presents these frameworks alongside each other for the first time and draws broadly from theories of affective architecture to describe the practice of dignified design. Bridging partially between its orientation as a principled design concept and policymakers’ need for evidentiary support, here dignified design practice is juxtaposed against the experiential outcomes of past prison design as told through a set of interviews with former jail and prison detainees. Moreover, its promise is explored in qualitative interviewing with policymakers involved in recent reforms of jail and prison architecture. Finally, the chapter concludes by proposing a multimodal research agenda to develop dignified design practice and its standards in collaboration across academic disciplines and jurisdictional context.

This chapter proposes a method for characterising youth custodial facilities across jurisdictions, regimes, and cohorts, with the objective of providing well evidenced and concrete guidance for the design of youth custodial facilities. Academic literature on effective treatment approaches for justice-involved young people supports a focus on therapeutic, tailored approaches that build and strengthen positive youth development, social support networks, and commitment to school or work. By establishing the design implications which follow from this evidence, a series of key characteristics emerge that define a best-practice, theoretical facility model: small-scale, locally sited, and integrated with the surrounding community, designed to promote relational and differentiated security, and comprising therapeutic design characteristics. We explored each of the characteristics in three well-regarded European jurisdictions: Spain, Norway, and the Netherlands. Our observations substantiate the theoretical facility model as a valuable tool for drawing into view the tensions, opportunities, strengths, and weaknesses of a design, relative to the facility’s given context. Our findings highlight the importance of carefully considering the design of youth justice facilities in terms of the desired outcomes as they greatly impact upon procedures and ways of working within these facilities, and ultimately impact the outcomes for young people and the community.

Rehabilitation is a central objective of modern prison design and construction. Yet applied theories of rehabilitation pay insufficient attention to how prison architectural and design factors produce environments that support the process of personal change. In this chapter, we apply an ecological system-oriented approach to present a theoretical framework that explains how the physical, social and psychological elements of a prison environment interact to support or inhibit rehabilitation. The result is an applied multilevel model of prison-based rehabilitation. This model hypothesises that the rehabilitative power of the prison environment emerges when its structural and relational components interact in ways that satisfy basic psychological needs; facilitate prosocial skills and knowledge transfer and support positive identity transformation. It is the emergence of these causal properties within the environment that allows the experience of prison to generate rehabilitative progress and success among those who are imprisoned. This causal model also provides theoretical guidance in the design and delivery of rehabilitative prisons as well as an empirical framework to examine the relationships between the multiple environmental elements and rehabilitation outcomes.

What characterizes prison design in the Norwegian Youth Units and how does such design affect youths and staff? This chapter builds on an ethnographic prison study that stretched over five years, from 2013 to 2018. The material consists of document studies, topographical material, interviews with staff and youths, and field notes from site visits. The chapter reveals how normative demands such as “the best interests of the child” are brought into prison design and affect bodies. A particular focus is on unintended consequences and the risk that normative demands, prison design, and practical correction might not correspond. In the closing section the chapter problematize the negligible impact ethnographic studies often have for the policy level, and how this may lead to a lack of knowledge about what works in custodial design.

In this chapter, we explore processes and practices of everyday prison interior (re)design through analysis of the creation of a specialist unit for prisoners with severe mental illnesses in a large reception prison in the North of England. We argue that meeting the needs of prisoners with serious mental illnesses forms an increasingly important part of decision-making regarding contemporary prison (re)design. Firstly, we attend to adaptation to understand the complexities of re-designing existing interior spaces within the custodial estate to meet the needs of specific groups. Secondly, we explore the opportunities presented by indeterminacy, as the Unit began operating when so many elements of its design, usage and regime were still unknown. Finally, we elucidate the centrality of forms of accommodation in the re-design of the Unit, involving compromise and negotiation. We conclude that attuning analysis of prison design to the everyday processes and practices that shape much of the custodial estate enables insights to improve the re-design and adaptations of existing prisons.

An autoethnographic study was conducted to explore the conditions of confinement in a prison in the northeastern U.S. Current and formerly incarcerated men and an instructor of college courses in prisons observed, reflected on, and wrote about their perceptions of the architecture of the prison environment, how the architecture of the correctional institution shaped their lives, the problems with correctional facility design, and intended outcomes of facility design. Following an overview of autoethnography and its influence on our research methods used in collecting data for this chapter, specific aspects of correctional facility design examined in this chapter include prison cells, toilets in cells, visitation and communication spaces, building materials, lighting, and colour schemes of prison walls, lack of windows in prison, exterior appearance of the facility, and geographic location of the prison. Proposals are offered for reimagined custodial design that is more humane and civilized, which could encourage desirable outcomes, such as learning and rehabilitation, among the people sentenced to serve time.

Designers and planners of jails and prisons do not control policy, legislation, judicial findings, or available funding. Operators work with what they have unless they can convince elected officials to allocate additional resources. However, all involved can attempt to procure and operate facilities in a manner that mitigates negative outcomes for everyone who becomes justice system involved. Reducing the potential for abuse and violence—inmate-on-inmate, inmate-on-staff, and staff-on-inmate—and improving conditions of confinement through design and incentivization blunts negative outcomes and potential future misuse. The work does not end after buildings are constructed, and entrenched cultural issues that may negatively impact safe and effective operations must be addressed. Although designers have limited levers to influence organizational culture, their designs can support safe, secure, and constitutional operations via functionality, adequate flows of people and materials, and environments that promote wellness. However, the adoption of inmate supervision paradigms—especially the extent to which administrators commit to full implementation— drives organizational culture, reduced violence, vandalism, suicides, lower levels of inmate stress, and increased officer job satisfaction. These improved outcomes, however, only occur when everyone up the chain of command fully commits to positive organizational culture, and that commitment is sustained.

Of the 1.3 million women in the United States under criminal supervision in 2017, approximately 117,000 were housed in jails (The Sentencing Project, Incarcerated women and girls, 2019). The physical environment in which jail residents live drastically impacts their daily routines, accessibility to services, and feelings of safety and security. Considering most jails in the United States are binarily sex-segregated and house significantly more men than women, the gendered nature of these facilities is particularly apparent in the purposive design of these facilities. For women, the design of a facility may act as a barrier to getting their needs met because facilities are not constructed to specifically meet their needs which differ in number and types from the needs of men. Using a case study of one jail, this chapter will dissect how the carceral space, layout, and design of the facility makes it challenging to ensure the needs of women are met through connections to educational programming and health services. In this way, architectural decisions are direct reflections of the purposes and goals of a correctional facility (Wener, The environmental psychology of prisons and jails: Creating humane spaces in secure settings, 2012), which in this chapter is argued to be both non-rehabilitative in nature and gendered at its core.

The natural environment has proven to nurture and heal the human mind, body, and spirit and yet, access to nature is often considered a luxury or privilege. Correctional facilities are often places of unrelenting cold, grey environments sited on expanses of lawn or provide no access to the nature at all. This lack of nature in correctional environments is being challenged by criminal justice reform efforts. In this chapter, we provide a framework for designing nature into correctional environments which is grounded in design theories and demonstrated through a series of gardens designed and constructed at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. Intentionally transforming the metaphorical and literal grey correctional environment to a green one subsequently holds great promise for the individual physical, emotional, and social health of those who are incarcerated and their lives in the institution and upon return their return to the community. In this chapter we explore what it means to go “from grey to green” and present guidelines on ways in which the biophilic, therapeutic, universal, attention restoration theory, and sensory design principles associated with health-promoting environments can be applied to outdoor prison design as a means to support wellbeing for incarcerated individuals.

This chapter draws together a set of recent findings which demonstrate a statistically robust relationship between green space and wellbeing of prisoners and prison staff. Extending prior prison-level qualitative studies which find that nature contact influences prisoners’ self-reported wellbeing, this work used GIS mapping to generate a new prison greenspace dataset, capturing—for a cross-section of prisons in England and Wales—the percentage of greenspace within their perimeters. Econometric estimations confirm that greenspace fosters prisoner and prison staff wellbeing, in that there are lower levels of self-harm and violence, and lower levels of staff sickness absence, in prisons with more greenspace. These relationships persist when prison size, type, age, staffing level, and level of crowding are controlled for. The findings have the potential to significantly influence future prison design. In addition to summarising these findings, the chapter also reports exploratory investigations on whether and how the inclusion of prison layout type might impact on the wellbeing effects of greenspace.

Prison design in Nordic countries focuses on green outdoor spaces more than prison design in Anglophone countries.

Restorative justice is a theoretical approach to criminal justice that seeks to identify the harms and needs experienced by victims, hold offenders meaningfully accountable for the repair of those harms, and address personal, interpersonal, and social causes of crime. The values guiding this process are ones of interconnectedness, respect, healing and transformation, engagement, and a non-hierarchical stance. Research across disciplines offers guidance on emerging design principles of a restorative justice-informed design that prioritizes the goals and values of restorative justice. Such design challenges the punitive foundation of incarceration, thus making the idea of a restoratively designed custodial facility impossible. Rather, restorative justice design asks us to remove the design and construction of custodial facilities from the design table and shift our attention toward the design and construction of a constellation of spaces that address survivors’ needs, facilitate meaningful accountability on the part of offenders, and support structural foundations for social justice. Restorative justice-informed design asks what kind of society we want, not what kind of prison we want, clearing the path for decarceration.

This chapter describes a participatory design-led project with prisoners, prison officers, prisoner estate managers and other HMPPS staff. It sought to involve “experts of experience” in the design process to ensure designs for prison furniture were “fit for purpose” in being able to address issues of misuse and abuse, as well as safety and wellbeing issues relevant to the prison environment. The project involved participants in a porous ecosystem of knowledge exchange that subsequently informed several design research stages, prior to finalisation of designs for mass production. It also involved evaluators in creating the means to test and assess the performance of design processes as well as the generation of furniture for the prison estate. This chapter reviews the strengths and pragmatic constraints in trying to utilise a collaborative design approach to aid problem-solving in prison. Ultimately, it seeks to raise questions for prison industries about strategic and collaborative design activity within criminal justice settings. It reviews how approaches to risk management within the prison estate—important for safety and security—present challenges to the implementation of design-led and co-production change agendas useful for prisons and already being successfully pioneered by other government agencies.