The height of the new jail towers was later slashed from 45 storeys to a maximum of 29, but the damage had been done. The images of these brutish concrete silos symbolised a rack’em and stack’em approach, attracting criticism from both prison reform advocates and the communities in which these fortified slabs were to be planted. — The Guardian
Writing in The Guardian, critic Oliver Wainwright examines competing visions for the future of New York City’s prisons.
Earlier this year, AECOM was selected to envision a dispersed carceral archipelago for the city that would take the place of the sordid Rikers Island prison. The plan has faced strong opposition from groups like No New Jails NYC and others who seek to have the city move away from mass incarceration and toward alternative forms of justice administration.
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bad urban planning and design. Jails don’t have to be IN THE CITY they just have to be accessible by public transportation
This is a bad (and predictable) result of the research completed several years ago, which was supported by the Van Alen, see also Next City.
Granted, there will always be questions about the role of architects in making spaces that are punitive (remember, heath, safety, and well fare), but the key takeaways from the research suggested that localizing and decentralizing prisons could have and added benefit to those interred along with the people impacted by their prison sentence. This is of particular importance when correctional systems nationally are leaning towards punitive systems that charge prisoners for the "privilege" of reading and visitation rights are seen as an opportunity to extract more money.
But, suggesting that the local model should simply be a tower relocated in the city is a lazy interpretation of the earlier research.
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