Design concepts underling modern jail interiors

Real Estate Weekly,  July 11, 2007  by Ken Ricci

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When the time came to open the newly designed addition to New York's Dutchess County jail, the sheriff said to me, "You know, none of my staff will want to work in the new place. They like what they know, and they feel safe in the old environment. The new place is too open, too loose, and, besides, no corrections officer wants to be in a pod with 50 inmates."

The sheriff was soon proved wrong. Staff competed for assignments in the new addition. The old wing was dark, noisy, hot in summer and cold in winter, and was a warren of crooked corridors, blind corners and steel bars. The new fifty-person housing units, in contrast, were spacious, quiet, and had plenty of daylight, vibrant colors, and carpet on the floor. Each cell had a view of the houses across the street and a porcelain commode and sink. The constant year-round temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

The approach to the design of the new wing combined sophisticated number crunching about inmate classification with a belief that normative environments for most, not all, inmates will produce normal behavior. Normative environments contain sunlight, views, colors, natural (or at least normal) materials, personal space and control of some personal territory, along with the round-the-clock presence of a correctional officer to maintain order. Advantages include not only normal behavior, but also reductions in assaults by inmates and in staff absenteeism.

Normative design for jails and prisons interiors, once considered a radical concept, is now standard throughout most of the country. The benefits of normative design begin at intake, where most arrestees are invited to sit in an open waiting area that has comfortable seating, TV, phones, and, preferably, a view to the outdoors. The environment sends a message that normal behavior is expected.

More specifically, the message is, "What happened on the street stays on the street. You are in our house now. Our rule is personal dignity and personal accountability."

The message extends to the housing pod, which typically contains a series of individual cells (anywhere from 50 to 64) arranged on two levels around a two-story-high dayroom. The dayroom looks out onto an outdoor recreation area. Inmates are free to move from indoors to outdoors.

The ceiling at the dayroom is about 20 feet above the dayroom floor, which allows for a normal acoustic lay-in tile ceiling, both sound absorptive and much cheaper than a security plaster ceiling. Recent research at the University of Minnesota confirms what most designers intuitively know: The higher ceiling in the group space creates a feeling of openness and freedom, while the lower ceiling in the individual cells provides a more personal feeling conducive to intimate thinking.

These findings are not surprising. We know that the brain influences behavior, and research strongly suggests that environment influences the brain. Through personal experience, we know that some spaces elevate our mood while other spaces make us nervous or sad.

In recent years, evidence-based research has quantified benefits of day lighting: students in schools with modern day lighting outperform their peers; attendance rates increase; hospital patients heal faster when they have views to greenery; factory production rises; and retail sales increase.

Both staff and inmates benefit from the decrease in stress attained through normative design. For the normal inmate who cannot make bail or bond, a good design maintains a connection to sun and sky, the feel and look of color and normal materials, a little bit of modesty for toilet and hygiene and a connection to family through visitation by video or in person.

There is a growing recognition that the local jail is often the turnstile of the justice system, with many of the same repeat offenders cycling through, among them many mentally ill who cannot make it on the streets. If, as studies suggest, two thirds of the typical jail population is normal, then it is possible to encourage appropriate behavior from them if the environment sends the right cues.

BY KEN RICCI, FAIA

PRESIDENT, RICCI GREENE ASSOCIATES

COPYRIGHT 2007 Hagedorn Publication
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning