Correctional Facility Planning and Design
Finding Solutions for Today and Tomorrow
Prison architecture as a specialty came of age in the United States during the last quarter century, inspired by two seminal events:
- the movement toward rehabilitating people who will one day return to the outside world and
- the growth in the number of people under incarceration
Both scenarios demanded correctional facilities that met changing needs while preserving the non-negotiables of security and economy. Architects and consultants working in this area were challenged to reinvent the fortress, and they did—with remarkable success.
Now, as the smoke clears from an explosion of corrections construction through the mid-1990s, a new challenge emerges. The number of people behind bars has declined for the first time since 1972. But the face of incarceration has changed. The population under detention at the dawn of the 21st century is older, has more physical and mental disabilities, and includes more women and juveniles.
These demographics mean the corrections industry must address issues more complex than overcrowding. But what kind of solutions are emerging as planners and architects apply existing design principles to the needs of an aging lifer or a raging teenager? What role do experienced design professionals play in the process of planning for new or renovated facilities? And how can the sometimes conflicting demands for security and rehabilitation be sorted out?
Stephen Carter, a consultant in justice planning with Carter Goble Associates in Columbia, South Carolina; Leonard Witke, architect and justice consultant with The Durrant Group in Madison, Wisconsin; Florian Walicki, planner and principal with RNL Design in Denver; and James Kessler, an architect and senior principal with HOK in Washington, D.C., agree that work in this field holds important potential for generating solutions. They reflect here on the newest challenges facing correctional facility designers and the industry as a whole.
From Hard Time to Rehabilitation
Time was, wrongdoers of every stripe landed behind bars that were designed to protect the public but did little to change criminal behavior. Prisons and jails needed to be no more than impenetrable buildings, secure and inescapable.
Where social policy leads, however, correctional facilities must follow. Len Witke notes that the philosophy of rehabilitation that materialized in the U.S. in the late 1960s and early 1970s pressed existing facilities into a kind of service they were not designed to do. The shift to helping prisoners modify their behavior while inside and creating more contact between correctional officers and prisoners stretched resources to the limit. It also offered an opening for architects with a vision of what was possible in the correctional milieu.
“The essence of any prison today is the housing unit,” says Witke, who spent 20 years as director of facilities management and staff architect for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. He says with the dawn of direct supervision—and the expectation that inmates would spend more time in controlled environments—housing and program areas needed to be physically linked, making activities from dining to dayroom use more manageable. The idea emerged to house inmates in groups of limited size, in part as a way to contain aggressive behavior more easily, but also to support expanded programming.
Criminal justice consultant Stephen Carter characterizes the move to smaller cell blocks this way: “It was like determining the size of a village where you had the best hope of doing something about behavior and changing the way people act.”
According to Carter, who helped develop the first set of building and space standards established by the American Correctional Association (ACA) in 1983, federal prisons in particular were the first to switch from linear facility designs to triangles and squares. It changed everything, he says. “These new shapes created a day space in the middle that gives designers more to work with, an open space that lets the staff perceive problems before they become problems.”
Since that time, controlling disruptions and protecting vulnerable individuals have evolved into parallel concerns. Under ACA guidelines, cell blocks designed to hold no more than 200 or as few as 100 people are now a baseline for accommodating education and social services that can turn lives around. That compares with the 500 to 1,000 inmates housed in a single area before the standards were in place.
Witke says the smaller, campus-like configuration offers the ideal framework for classifying and segregating inmates with special needs. “I see us being able to create safe areas for geriatric inmates, for instance, so they don't have to confront young, active inmates,” he observes. Similarly, female inmates, who often have a greater need for privacy and family contact, and juveniles, who require more order and direction in their lives, benefit from the facility-within-a-facility environment.
Architect's Role: To Confine the Human Spirit?
The decades-long track record of this architectural specialty does not erase the irony some correctional facility designers find in using their craft to create spaces of confinement. However, especially where the needs of vulnerable populations are concerned, the best of them recognize the challenge of constituting spaces that do not confine the spirit or crush self-esteem even while sending an unmistakable message of punishment.
Florian Walicki says his own entry into the criminal justice field in 1984 was an eye-opener. After years of planning healthcare and treatment facilities—healing environments—he began to work on environments that did not support healing. “I may have been overly optimistic about what I could do to change things, but I still believe the role of planners and designers is to create environments that help people.”
Walicki, Carter, Witke and Jim Kessler, who is principal designer for many major correctional facilities, all describe the pre-design analysis as essential to establishing clear objectives and unearthing new ideas. They say the planning behind correctional facilities, more than other building types, demands a deep understanding of issues with consequences that are as likely to be life-enhancing as they are life-threatening. While not exhaustive, this list illustrates the range of topics a pre-design analysis might cover:
- Facility mission and operational philosophy
- Inmate and staff safety
- Degree of necessary surveillance
- Ability to serve at-risk populations
- Level of staff skills and training
- Type and quality of support facilities
- Proximity to outside services
- Community concerns and involvement
- Presence of alternatives to incarceration
Input from behavioral scientists also is on the agenda when Walicki first sits down with a client. He relies on the behaviorist's expertise to enrich everyone's understanding of criminal psychology and provide factual ammunition when agencies must lobby for building or program funds. Planning and designing facilities to house older inmates, non-violent female offenders, juvenile offenders and people classified as sexually violent predators makes such input an imperative.
“Too many corrections projects are bound by budgets that don't address the real problems and hamper a qualified staff in doing their jobs,” Walicki adds. “If our early planning process includes facts about how to deal with the people who are coming into prison, a realistic look at recidivism rates and the like, my clients are better able to persuade policymakers about what they need to do the job.”
Kessler notes that experienced architects and consultants also offer important balance and perspective in the pre-design stage. “When agencies work with us, they gain the advantage of what we know about how other communities or agencies have approached and solved problems just like theirs.” Qualified correctional facility designers do not merely “paint from memory,” he says, but serve as conduits, translating a client's vision into solutions.
Witke emphasizes that, by day's end, the goal of the pre-design analysis is to generate a shared philosophy supported by everyone. “This was hard to do in the 90s when prison construction was so crisis-driven and fast-moving…but design and planning matter again and architects can provide leadership in the process.”
What Now, What's Next?
Change takes place slowly in corrections. That's a fact all of those working in the field recognize. And, because the primary job of corrections is to minimize the risk to the public from criminal elements, they say there is a reluctance to experiment with facility designs and programs that might appear to coddle or protect inmates in an effort to rehabilitate them.
Nonetheless, Witke and colleagues concur that the growing sophistication and reach of justice facility consultants and architects who specialize in corrections give them influence over how agencies approach the imprisonment of a burgeoning population of non-traditional culprits.
Facility design professionals are, pure and simple, in a position to plant the seeds of architectural and programming progress across the industry. Carter, for instance, brings ideas from other countries where correctional authorities have tested everything from mothers-with-babies units in female prisons to wider use of independent living and work programs for other inmate groups. “As attitudes change, designs change, too,” he says.
All four correctional facility experts believe the combined knowledge of those working in corrections administration and the solution-based experience of facility designers make the question of “what's next?” easier to answer.
Many of those answers already exist in technological and program innovations found in current correctional facility operations and designs.
Security—The “campus” philosophy used in most medium security facilities brought with it a walls-no-longer strategy, says Witke, calling for new perimeter security concepts. High, impenetrable masonry walls are being replaced with less-obtrusive wire fences and more dependable electronic-detection systems. Institutions are eliminating guard towers and putting valuable staff back in circulation to, among other things, oversee programs serving special-needs groups.
Drug Testing—Caring for and managing at-risk prison populations calls for more sophisticated, efficient tools to test for periodic drug use. The newest devices are compact, portable and able to detect trace drugs effectively.
Materials—In any facility with the mission to rehabilitate, behavioral studies advise the use of softer interior materials—like carpeting, wood doors, tiles—and the addition of more color, better acoustics and more natural light. Designers are creating more humane environments for medium- and minimum-security facilities with these elements, but softer materials also serve as incentives for prisoners to be responsible for their surroundings. “Suddenly, prison is an environment where they can learn, socialize and be productive,” Witke notes. Equally important, such interior touches make the facility a kinder place for the people who work there.
Sustainable Architecture—Daylighting is the first area where correctional facility planning has embraced the precepts of sustainability. Witke explains that proponents of natural lighting make the argument that it helps contain costs by reducing energy consumption and—like softer materials—has positive benefits for the people who live and work in a building.
Healthcare Facilities—The health needs of women in prison—HIV infection is twice as prevalent among this population—as well as older prisoners and inmates with mental illness require that serious attention be paid to healthcare facilities in correctional design. Carter notes that taking a page out of medical facility design is useful for correctional architects who must consider hospital and long-term care scenarios.
Release Facilities for Sexually Violent Predators (SVP—Fourteen states, so far, have statutes on the books requiring that SVPs be released into secure facilities after serving their time. But, notes Walicki, few specific facilities exist to house them or meet the expectations of the community. As this population is projected to increase, standards are being set for programs and places that provide intensive therapeutic treatment, adequate security, well-trained staff and in locations acceptable to area residents but close to services.
Staff Amenities—Many long-serving corrections staff members will do more time “inside” than most prisoners before they retire. Carter says fresh attention is being paid to the needs of correctional officers and others who toil daily in correctional facilities. Well-appointed exercise areas, changing rooms and other details are becoming more common as a way to create a less stressful working environment.
Transitional Facilities and Aftercare—“We must recognize that a person's time in prison is only part of our responsibility,” says Carter. Despite rehabilitation on the inside, many people are left adrift on the outside. He suggests that day reporting centers and other transitional facilities for parolees are needed and can benefit from the same sensibilities that go into the planning and design of prisons and jails.
The Power of Architecture
Stephen Carter observes that architecture has a lot to do with making people feel safe and getting their basic needs met. Applied to the correctional facilities of today and tomorrow, that notion is especially relevant. The art and science of designing and erecting buildings is—and has been—a powerful force in creating a sense of security, providing a forum for behavioral change, and meeting the expectations of a vast community of people affected by the realities of incarceration. Practitioners in this growing specialty also understand that steel and concrete alone do not ensure successful outcomes. They know a link must be forged between the built environment and what goes on inside that environment.
In a society where almost 6.5 million people are held under some form of correctional supervision, the power of architecture to help is undeniable.
Learn more about advances in the design of facilities capable of serving the country's correctional needs well into the future from Florian Walicki, Len Witke, Jim Kessler, Stephen Carter and others in this field through programs sponsored by the Department of Engineering Professional Development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Visit our Courses for more information on a host of continuing education courses or call 800-462-0876.
Sources: "Prisons Research at the Beginning of the 21st Century," Michael Tonry and Joan Petersilia, essay in Vol. 26 of Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, National Institute of Justice; United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, report dated August 21, 2001; Planning and Design Guide for Secure Adult and Juvenile Facilities, Leonard Witke, AIA, editor, published 1999 by ACA.
Written by Mary Maher
This article is based upon work supported by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Engineering Professional Development. It is for general information and distribution. It is not intended to provide specific solutions or advice for specific circumstances, which should be sought from appropriate professionals.