Prisons in the sky

Three observations:

First, there are some excellent resources for those wanting to study fads in the design of prisons.

Norman Johnston’s Forms of Constraint: History of Prison Architecture,
is a classic work demonstrating how societal attitudes toward prisoners
and their reform has influenced the design of the structures created to
house them. 

In 1973, Bill Nagel wrote The New Red Barn, a description and
critique of those who put their trust in prison architecture. The title came from a prison warden
who was asked what style of prison design he thought worked best. His response was that the physical structure of the prison was far less important than its staff. With the right staff, he argued, he could run a prison in a red
barn.

Nagel’s key message was that the focus on prison architecture began
with the assumption that it was necessary to separate offenders from
society. In response, he called for a moratorium on all new prison
construction while efforts were made to explore community-based
correctional programmes for offenders.

Second, although there is little that is vertical in the Vertical Prison other than the elevators, its design conveys a clear message about prisoners. They must be removed from society. Like penal islands and correctional facilities built in isolated parts of countries, the emphasis is on separation in the hope that work and their separation from terra firma will cause them to change.

Third, it is interesting to speculate on what architectural requirement might be for a city or country relying on restorative justice philosophy. We spent some time on this in preparing the initial report for the RJCity project.

We concluded that it would be important to have many places available for victim care and for conducting meetings between offenders and their victims or surrogate victims. One would want new designs for courtrooms in which victims can bring their own attorneys at various stages in the adjudication process.

Residential facilities would be needed for both voluntary and involuntary confinement of offenders in Houses of Refuge. Victims would have Safe Houses available to them for protection and/or for help in recovery.

While there would be need for some amount of secure facilities, these would be built within cities and oriented toward the eventual release of most offenders.

Architecture is important, but not the most important thing. The philosophy behind the design is critical. The Vertical Prison reflects a philosophy of segregation, of exclusion. Similar architectural approaches haven’t worked because the philosophy is wrong. The solution to crime comes not by removing offenders, but by planning the best way to integrate them into the community.