#prison design

The response to American concentration camps is abolition. 

The humanitarian response is to shut down the camps or prevent their establishment.* 

Building better detention centers, instead of using tent cities or converted sheds, is not humanitarian.

Justice for Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez, a 16 year old who died alone in his Border Patrol holding cell, is to make sure youth are not detained by a xenophobic government agency. 

Giving the Border Patrol enough funds to hopefully hire a nurse and buy some medicine is not justice. 

*(Dream Action Oklahoma and other activists led protests that resulted in the cancellation of plans to open a concentration camp to house immigrants at Fort Sill)

ARCHITECTS / DESIGNERS / PLANNERS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

has been calling for a Prison Design Boycott for years. ADPSR’s stance is simple, architects, designers and planners should refuse to design prisons and other carceral facilities. Don’t accept government contracts for the prison-industrial complex, even if the project is to improve prison design, do promote community-based alternatives to incarceration.

More specifically, ADSPR is advocating for

American Institute of Architects to amend its Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct to prohibit the design of spaces for killing, torture, and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In the United States, this comprises the design of execution chambers; super-maximum security prisons (“supermax”), where solitary confinement is an intolerable form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; and solitary confinement facilities for juveniles and the mentally ill. As people of conscience and as a profession dedicated to improving the built environment for all people, we cannot participate in the design of spaces that violate human life and dignity. Participating in the development of buildings designed for killing, torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is fundamentally incompatible with professional practice that respects standards of decency and human rights.

At a planning conference in 2017, I attended a panel in which one of the speakers was urban planner and university administrator Flores Forbes, who had been incarcerated in the early 1980s. He described attending an event, a charrette on “designing the ideal jail,” at which he had to excuse himself. The carceral institution is not a design exercise or the subject for a juried competition. 

My layperson’s understanding of harm reduction -- let’s just immediately improve the material conditions for this person, even if we are not addressing the underlying issues -- has generally made me less radical in my actual practice. Working within a broken system to improve people’s lives is worth it, I think, in many cases. However where this approach is really really problematic is when the “reform” or the small improvement actually further entrenches the injustice. 

"Kent stresses security over luxury," Chilliwack Progress. August 8, 1979. Page 37.

"'Luxurious' Kent Institution officially opens," Chilliwack Progress. August 8, 1979. Page 12. --- Kent Institution opened its doors to several hundred people last Wednesday for the official dedication ceremonies. Those it was actually intended for will arrive later.

The maximum security prison complex, which cost $17.2 million to construct and about $1.8 million to equip, was described as "luxurious" by Solicitor General Allan Lawrence.

The federal minister in charge of the prison system stated the complex near Agassiz is one of a kind, that another like it will likely not ever be built. He denied it has become obsolete during the planning and construction phases of the past five years but said some of the concepts which have been included have changed.

Despite suggestions of luxury, the overriding need that has been built into the design of Kent Institution is tight security. It will house a maximum of 192 inmates and is considered the first basic step in closing out the British Columbia Penitentiary in New Westminster.

They will live in self-contained units with six cells per unit and four units per block. A total of eight 24-inmate living blocks make up the full live-in capacity.

Kent Institution will require about 217 staff. The annual operating budget will be $5.7 million, or $30,000 per inmate. Staff will include those in ad ministration and other daytime staff plus around the clock seven days per week security officers.

Six industrial shops are equipped to manufacture products from wood or metal. They can accommodate up to 70 inmates each work shift or 120 per day in two shifts.

There is also a large gymnasium, outdoor tennis courts and an outside courtyard which is surrounded on all sides by buildings. It includes evergreen trees and broad sidewalks, a big change from the traditional, dusty prison recreational yard.

Two 16 feet high chain-link fences surround the entire perimeter, topped by coiled barbed wire with small stainless steel

knives that are said to cut a prospective escapee to the bone if he makes contact.

Four towers sit on each corner of the institution site, manned by officers who will watch the perimeter at all times.

Inside a system of security tunnels will take correctional staff to particular parts of the prison without their having to associate always with inmates. Staff and inmates have their own dining halls, separated by a single door.

Time away from the shops and dining hall for inmates is spent in their living unit, watching one of two televisions provided per 24 inmates or participating in card or board games. Individual cells include a bed, desk, sink and flush toilet. Security is maintained with the use of closed circuit television sets.

Kent Institution will begin receiving its first inmates in mid-August and will reach its full complement by early next year.