Just design: Healthy prisons and the architecture of hope

Abstract

This article develops the notion that institutional places and spaces are layered with meaning and that their architecture and design have a profound psychological and physiological influence on those who live and work within them. Mindful of the intrinsic link between 'beauty' and 'being just', the article explores the potential 'healing' or rehabilitative role of penal aesthetics. As many countries modernise their prison estates, replacing older facilities that are no longer fit-for-purpose with new, more 'efficient' establishments, this article discusses examples of international best (and less good) practice in penal and hospital settings. It reflects on what those who commission and design new prisons might learn from pioneering design initiatives in healthcare environments and asks whether the philosophies underpinning the 'architecture of hope' that Maggie's Cancer Care Centres exemplify could be incorporated into prisons of the future. The article was originally presented as a public lecture in the annual John V Barry memorial lecture series at the University of Melbourne on

Designing ‘Healthy’ Prisons for Women: Incorporating Trauma-Informed Care and Practice (TICP) into Prison Planning and Design

“…More broadly, our SHI-funded research of women’s prisons supported findings of an earlier study of men’s and mixed-gender facilities [37], which found common basic environmental elements that are near-universally desired by people in prison. These were not expressed as mere preferences, but were framed as matters of ontological security which, if not present, are apt to trigger mental instability and trauma.…”

“…These were not expressed as mere preferences, but were framed as matters of ontological security which, if not present, are apt to trigger mental instability and trauma. They include: a need for privacy; for socialization; for warmth when it is cold and for effective ventilation when it is hot; for some freedom of movement outside as well as inside; for regular, high-quality family visits; for meaningful and appropriately paid work/education/activities (including essential transferable skills, e.g., use of digital technologies); the ability to undertake a pastime or hobby beyond those traditionally permitted within custodial settings; facilities to cook one’s own food (and perhaps for one’s family) at least occasionally; to experience interaction with nature; and, crucially, to have a high degree of choice, autonomy and control over all these fundamental actions [37]. We believe that these ontological dimensions of lived experience in custody, together with the positive design cues inspired by Spivak’s analysis, could usefully be taken into account in the planning, architecture, and design of new prisons for women.…”

“…One of the other limitations on design innovation is that the professionals who work on prison commissions commonly specialise in custodial, justice or security portfolios and most have previously designed many other prisons. Architects are self-referential in the sense that they tend to be heavily influenced by their previous work [37] and have difficulty envisaging something radically different from what they have been asked to produce before, or what they ‘know’ prisons to look like from experience. The emphasis tends to lie on the perceived need, or symbolic desire, for the security paraphernalia that denotes ‘this is a prison’ and women’s prisons, therefore, tend to look like men’s prisons, despite the very different experiences and needs their occupants bring to custody with them.…”

“…An added problem with designing gender-appropriate custodial facilities is that architects who work on prisons for females are overwhelmingly male. In a recent study drawing-on interviews with fourteen lead architects on new prison commissions, only one (a landscape architect) was a woman [37]. Further, of the four consortia who competed for the new Limerick women’s prison contract in 2017–2018 (each of which included at least a dozen core personnel), there was not a single woman among them.…”

“…It goes without saying that provision of care for women at risk of substance abuse, self-harm and suicide is core to trauma-informed practice, but one element of design that has a broad evidence base to support its health-giving properties is access to and interaction with nature. Studies of hospital patients have linked even views of nature to faster recovery times, reduced demand for medication and lower levels of frustration and impatience, while studies of prisons have found that landscapes that incorporate trees and the wildlife they attract reduce feelings of sterility in the carceral environment and lead to general improvements in emotional wellbeing (see, e.g., [37,46]). Yet, an Inspectorate report of HMP Foston Hall found that women on the remand wing ‘did not have daily access to the open air’ and one-third of women there ‘had less than four hours out of cell each weekday’ [27] (p. 57).…”