Why does Prison Design matter? It is such a small iota of architecture, why care?

 

It matters because every architect will need to make decisions in their practice that do not rest in style or in function, but decisions that will rest in ethics. As an architect you will need to make decisions about the projects you choose and the decisions that will be made within those projects. Prisons deal with ethical issues of human rights.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has a set of codes about how architects should practice. The ethical standard from the AIA is ES 1.4, Human Rights.

 

“Members should uphold human rights in all their

professional endeavors.”

 

For prison architects two big human rights issues are solitary confinement and capital punishment. Capital punishment laws vary from state to state therefore are dependent on where the correctional center is located. For solitary confinement, there is no universally accepted definition. These can become grey areas for designers as they ultimately create the spaces that will be used. An article from the New York Times described the ethical issues surrounding prisons like this:

 

Today, prison design is a civic cause for some architects who specialize in criminal justice and care about humane design. There is a lot of research documenting how the right kinds of design reduce violence inside prisons and even recidivism. Architects can help ensure that prisons don’t succumb to our worst instincts — that they are not about spending the least amount of money to create the most horrendous places possible, in the name of vengeance — but promote rehabilitation and peace.

 

 

In the end, it is not about whether capital punishment, or solitary confinement, or anything else is right or wrong. The issues that you as an architect will face in your practice could be human rights, environmental, religious or many other categories, but it is about how you, the architect, will choose to respond to it.