Years ago I made a promise to myself I would never work on prisons or casinos.

I have still technically not worked on a prison yet, although there were series of detention facilities thrown in the mix, including detention cells in the casinos I worked on.

:(

Rusty, why wouldn't you work on a prison? Lack of design flexibility or for moral reasons?

A couple of years ago the Socio Design Foundation held a prison design competition for students. The studio I was in took part in it and it's a tough problem to tackle. You can find the winners on SDF's website under "past winners" and a google search for "prisoned design competition" can get you more info.

Jordan, if you read any articles about prisons that focused on rehabilitating prisoners, they were probably talking about prisons in Scandinavian countries, where they believe in silly things like second chance, and preparing a prisoner for assimilating back into the society, and educating them, and so on.

US system runs on 3 principles: outrage, revenge, and punishment. Bonus points if your state has privatized the prison system in name of reducing expenses (but really in the name of funneling state money into hands of for profit corps).

You said yourself its a booming industry. Have you asked yourself why?

Rusty, to paraphrase an old quotes of yours (I think)

The amount of fun one can have as an architect is inversely related to the amount of money they will make. I figured that a lack of people wanted to design prisons because they were boring. I also thought there was an increasing demand for prison design. However, it makes sense that state governments would not fund extra money for fancy designs. The article I read stated that modern day prisons attempted to build boxes for prisoners and nothing more. They also mentioned that in the 60's and 70's there was more flexibility in designing prisons that facilitated rehabilitation. Perhaps, I am among the young an naive to think that it's a noble goal to work toward bringing that back. However, I do recognize that it's about as likely as traveling back in time (given the us system).,.maybe less now that cern recorded a particle moving faster than the speed of light. 

I know I am reviving my own dead thread :-/ but does anyone know of any good literature on prison architecture. It seems that the only information online is pretty cursory, and nothing really delves deep into the topic with the exception of a $100.00 book I found on Amazon.

Thanks!

Read Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault. Amazon has it for less than $11. It's not exactly a "how to guide" on prison architecture but it will help you understand what not to do.  

Thanks Brian, I will certainly look into that book.

Can anyone give me a definitive reason as to why there is a negative connotation with prison architecture? Is it for the reason that Rusty mentioned-- Funneling state money to aid for profit building companies, or just a general distaste for the idea of creating a place that houses criminals?

Thanks

jordan, the American detention system is severely flawed: unfair sentencing based on race is common, horrendous criminal activity inside prisons is ignored, the idea of rehabilitation is minimal, and all of this is often done int he name of profit for private companies.  If a justice system in the US (or anywhere) truly was looking to create a place of rehabilitation, *that* would be an interesting design problem that would depend heavily on collaboration with non-architects (social workers, criminal psychologists, mental health specialists, educators).  The current booming prison market is not, from what I know, emphasizing rehabilitation.

I don't remember if someone upthread sent you to the ADPSR website.

Go To Work For NBBJ.....I think they still do Prisions.

For Profit Prisons emerged in the US in 1984.  War on Drugs started around the 70s.

i tried staying away from this topic, i really did, how it passed me the first time, i'll never know. here's what irritates me about this thread; how is it you have a particular interest in an area of architecture, and yet you have not spent a moment of independent thinking, about why schools of architecture have not focused on prison architecture?? what about prison architecture do you find uplifting? how do more prisons build better societies? how does prison design implement and/or resolve sustainability issues? how do (...) solve (...)? read your foucault, read your kafka, read your justice department stats, look into idiotic drug laws in america - start with the rockefeller drug laws...oh, because no one else has said, or wrote it yet; pull your head out of your ass, and do some thinking, on your own; a semi engaged high school senior could write a 15 page paper on this topic. 

It seI never really understood how someone could get upset by a "stupid" question on a forum-- so long as it's creates original discussion. Even if it is a dumb question that's been asked a million times, just don't post.

This may be a question that I could find the answer to with a thorough search, but why take the time to do that alone when there are several other people who have a wealth of knowledge and can offer constructive feedback?? 

gee. why take the time to do that? gee. um, like i don't know, because maybe that's what you do, um, like think about things independently, and then come to the table with something thoughtful to say, instead of mining others thoughts for something you can claim as your own. i mean really, did you just write that? should i write your term paper too? how about your studio project? why even do that, i mean, why bother doing something thoroughly on your own, when you can have someone do that for you?

god, please tell me i am wrong, and you actual are a high school student, because you surely are the canary signaling the finality of "american exceptionalism."

If somebody has a question and I know the answer to it, I am happy to reply. If I don't know the answer to a question, I will ask it. I'm not passing knowledge on this forum off as my own, I appreciate this forum for what it is-- a lot of intelligent people who (in most circumstances) have been available for myself and many others to answer questions regarding architecture from both an academic and a professional standpoint. 

detroit mercy used to have a prof who specialized in prison design, dont know if he is still there

Again, if there is information that I can share that would be of some benefit to someone on this forum I have and will continue to do so :-)

I know someone who worked on a project for a prison many years ago. Here’s an example I remember he mentioned of the kind of things that people who design prisons think about every day:

Let’s say you have to decide the direction of a door swing. If you are designing a house, you consider things like space available in both rooms, direction of travel and what view would be more pleasant when you enter the room. If you are designing a prison, you have to consider if the door swing increases the chances of someone being ambushed and stabbed in the eye with a tooth-brush.

@matias, that graph looks awful until you consider the population growth curve

jk3hl, the same wikipedia page from which that graph came shows that population increases have nothing to do with it.  The increase in incarceration relates directly with the War on Drugs (tm) and the mandatory sentencing that came along with it.  Creative entrepreneurs figured out that in running prisons and lobbying for mandatory sentencing, they had a guaranteed client base.

This country is fucked.  And I use that term out of sheer frustration and complete depression at the realization that there is no more intelligent word for it: profiteering and lobbying have fucked democracy.

One of my favorite (read: most heinously disgusting) examples bolstering the argument that the current move to privatize prisons is wrong, wrong, wrong:

Federal prosecutors accused (ed: and have since successfully prosecuted Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judge Mark) Ciavarella and Conahan of taking more than $2 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers and extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the facilities’ co-owner...Ciavarella often ordered youths he had found delinquent to be immediately shackled, handcuffed and taken away without giving them a chance to say goodbye to their families. Some of the children he ordered locked up were as young as 10.

This is a JUDGE taking millions in bribes to send 10 year old children to prviate prisons.  Scumbags.  Do you really want to be involved in designing facilities for these people?  or would you rather invest that energy in reform?

This is one of the most interesting projects I've seen on prisons and urban space, done at Columbia:

http://www.spatialinformationdesignlab.org/projects.php?id=16

It's called the Million Dollar Blocks project, and maps where people arrested and incarcerated in the NYC area actually live. Several areas in the Bronx, they discover, are actually getting over a million dollars per year in spending per block--it's just in the form of prison bills instead of education, health care or infrastructure.

marika, thank you for posting that map project - I had forgotten about it and it's heartbreaking.

Prisons

@Pandekage given you work for a firm that "pretty much only designs correctional facilities in California" i would be curious your thoughts regarding the recent(ish) ethics push by 'Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility' (ADPSR)?