Correctional planning and design: an overview
Over the past few years, the planner and designer have gained considerable knowledge of what constitutes a normalized and therapeutic environment. Considering an architectural design that soothes and provides well-being, this may seem more applicable to health care needs, but professionals working in Adjustments, such as business managers, health care workers, architects
and designers (A + D) also recognize this need. As medical experts become more prone to corrective populations, it becomes clear that large percentages are associated with mental and dependency disorders. In addition, the number and age of the population increases. As many of those under imprisonment return to our communities, fears grow that the more often we choose “warehouse” rather than humanize and restore, the greater the negative impact this segment of the population will continue to have on public health and welfare
Therefore, architects and consultants make every effort in this area to reinvent strength and meet changing needs, while maintaining irreversible security and economic problems. Ensuring protection of the population from criminal behavior without discussion precedes the goal. However, the biggest question remains: how can society balance conflicting security needs and the need to rehabilitate, but still protect the public and minimize criminal behavior?
Reasons for rethinking the design of correctional institutions
At the dawn of the 21st century, in corrections reports, the population is aging, has more physical and mental disabilities, and includes more women and minors. These statistics indicate that the industry must solve more complex problems than simple storage and overcrowding. This inspired many planners and architects to rethink how we design and manage correctional facilities. Questions arise: Is there a way to change plans to reduce the population and expand programs while protecting the necessary security? Are there methods and new technologies that help ensure security, provide correctional officers and allow their resources to be returned to productive management? Is there a planning and development method that helps humanize the prisoner, reducing their anxiety and increasing safety for all?
According to Leonard Vitka, who spent 20 years as director of facility management and state architect for the Wisconsin Correctional Services Department, “The essence of any prison today is a housing unit.” Witke says that with the onset of direct observation and the expectation that prisoners spend more time in controlled environments, housing and program areas need to be physically connected, which makes daytime dining activities more manageable.
The first change in this was noticed in 1983, when federal prisons switched from linear objects to triangles and squares. This had a direct impact. “These new forms created daytime space in the middle, which gives designers more room to work, an open space that allows employees to see problems before they become problems,” said Steven Carter, a justice planning consultant with Carter Goble Associates, and which helped develop the first set of building and space standards set by the American Correctional Association (ACA). Having demonstrated the positive results, the prisoners are placed in groups of limited size, 100-200, instead of the previous 500-1000, partly as a way to more easily contain aggressive behavior, as well as to support advanced programming. Witke says that a smaller, campus-like configuration offers an ideal basis for classifying and separating prisoners with special needs. "I see that we can create safe areas for geriatric prisoners, for example, so that they do not have to deal with young, active prisoners." Similarly, female prisoners often have a greater need for privacy and family contact, while minors require more order and direction in their lives. Both of them benefit from the “object within object” environment.
However, the downside of a small “pod” design and the transition to helping prisoners change their behavior, essentially create more contacts between them and correctional workers and can stretch resources to the limit. According to Witke, currently a consultant on architecture and justice in the Durrant group in Madison, this provided an opportunity for A + D to think about what is possible and develop a vision.
The task becomes a problem of parallel problems: how to change the behavior of people, control violations of prisoners and protect vulnerable people. According to leading experts in this field, the best correctional institutions recognize the problem of creating spaces that do not determine the spirit or do not suppress self-esteem, and also send an unmistakable message about the order.
Nevertheless, planning and design in Correctional institutions, more than any other type of building, requires a deep understanding of the problem of issues - all this can be life-affirming and life-threatening. Again, depending on whether the tool is minimal, moderate, or maximum security, plays a special role in decisions regarding planning, design, and the human element. Therefore, below is a list of key variables:
- Foundation mission and operating philosophy
- Prisoners and staff security
- The degree of supervision required
- Ability to serve risk groups
- Level of skills and staff training
- staff retention
- Type and quality of support facilities
Proximity to external services
- Community issues and participation
- Availability of alternatives to imprisonment
Given these problems, the question arises how planners and designers address these needs and retain the undeniable safety factor, but create external tools that provide a normalized environment.
Design Issues for New Corrections
Below are the key “design tenants” that leading experts are reviewing and introducing into new correctional facilities. They are not listed by importance, but by the need for a conversation:
1. Humanizing materials and color
2. Staffed amenities and happiness
3. Safety and security
4. Health
5. Tenants for therapeutic design
Humanizing materials and color
In all institutions that play a role in rehabilitation, designers seek to create spaces that inspire, soothe, and relax. Such spaces ease anxiety, change behavior and instill dignity. Mostly applicable to minimum and medium security levels. Corrections and transitional tools, appropriate materials and color create an environment in which prisoners can learn, communicate and be productive. In addition, these interiors create a warmer environment for those who work there.
Behavioral studies recommend using better acoustics, daylight and deliberate use of color to create a normalized environment that calms the mind and restores it. Leading studies show that interiors that have an interesting use of material and color, and which are not overly neutral, will increase morale and mental well-being, which will extremely reduce the number of prisoners and staff.
For fixes, this leads to increased security. When prisoners calm down, their misdemeanor is reduced, which directly increases the safety and resources of the staff. In addition, it is clear that when staff experience a safer environment, job satisfaction increases, and the rules and policies regarding life preservation are more likely to be respected. Color is also used for logistic zones. Therefore, when using color for a zone, he quickly exposes an officer’s urgency to find out when a prisoner has crossed the border. The use of color in zones also contributes to maintaining mobile furniture in the right area.
Convenience-oriented staff
It has been shown that before they retire, long-term correctional personnel will spend more time “inside” than most prisoners. In addition, it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit, train and retain correctional labor. Baby boomers quit their jobs at an alarming rate and force organizations to lose proven people in critical situations. In addition, the Corrections recognize that employers and health workers require special training, and with this special training, these people become more accessible in the private sector. According to Joyce G. Fogg, chairman of the Virginia Employment Commission and member of the Advisory Board of the ACA working group, “This is one of the most serious problems that will be fully staffed in the future, and competition will further add to the state of staffing problems Because some workers understand that jobs in the private sector can bring in more pay and less bureaucracy. ” In times of economic crisis, this says a lot.
As the need for correctional workers, social workers, medicine, mental health, and education increases over the next decade, vital stimuli, including more personnel-oriented career platforms, and overall job satisfaction play a key role in the correction. the ability to attract skilled workers and compete with the private sector.
Kelly Zill, a professor at the University of Mississippi in the Department of Administration of Justice, states that there are four variables that are significant predictors of job satisfaction under the Correction:
1. Feelings of danger of work
2. Operating voltage
3. Age of worker
4. Supervisor Care
The dial says that the messages indicate that the less likely it is that the worker should have a sense of danger of work, the more likely he or she should have been satisfied at work. Work stress and age were the most significant predictors of job satisfaction. As the age of the correctional worker increases, his job satisfaction increases. Tsifert also refers to the fact that the final significant predictor of job satisfaction is the departure from the supervisors. Employees who report less avoidance from immediate supervisors are much more likely to reduce their sense of job satisfaction.
Dissatisfaction with work leads to critical issues for correctional institutions. Due to the fact that many agencies are faced with a shortage of staff, Zill says that first-line managers caring for their employees can be a practical way to retain staff. Currently, many solutions are used to change the results of research in the field of business and medical institutions; mainly the “end user” approach. This approach is of great benefit to the employee, with managers focusing more on people and relationships than on “toner and spreadsheets”. These managers had a higher level of productivity than those managers who made decisions themselves and dictated to subordinates.
For architects and object managers, the challenge is to create prisoners and employees who humanize and ensure normal work. These spaces need alternative materials and more interesting use of color to raise the psyche and increase morale. Staff rooms filled with natural light and providing well-equipped areas, such as staff recreation areas, help ensure the perception of staff that managers directly “take care” of them and their relationships.
Safety and security
Without discussion, this focus of the Correctional Fund is on protecting staff, vulnerable individuals and the public at large. Few people will also discuss the important role planning and design plays as a result of the security of the facility. As already discussed, many elements are used to improve all aspects of safety and security: smaller “containers” with community centers that are easier to control, use of technology that frees officers and warn about violations, increases in programs expandable by prisoners, and the introduction of humanizing materials and color. These strategies have a positive effect on staff retention, return valuable personnel and provide the best resources to support expanded programs and oversee special needs groups. As these walls descend, experts and administrators at Correction believe that color plays a key role. Not only does the color visually soften the other uncomfortable, the gloss environment is not enough, it can also be used as a tool to develop key areas and ensure that prisoners are properly within their designated area.
Health care
When many state psychiatric institutions close and “deposit” their patients in correctional institutions, which are added with the correction of an aging population and the explosion of a woman and juvenile prisoners, the number and diversity of people who unite the corrective population of a country quickly grows, This leads to justice system and public health is becoming more pronounced than ever before, and experts who understand that any serious dialogue concerning the Correction cannot be sued Include a critical component of Health. In order to minimize the problems of physical health and health problems of prisoners, we must provide complete care. Therefore, it is not enough to consider traditional problems of physical health, and correctional workers are only beginning to realize the need to appeal to the prisoner's psychological well-being.
A recent report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that at least 16% of those in prisons have histories of mental health problems. To some behavioral experts and corrections experts, this statistic seems low. It is also estimated that almost two thirds of those in prisons had or had problems with addiction and lifestyle practices, which put them at risk for fatal infectious diseases. Again, since correctional facilities are used as stocks of mental health, these statistics increase significantly.
According to James Gondl, ACA Executive Director, “Providing quality health care, both physical and mental, is a vital part of our efforts to bring people back to society better than they left and as contributors.” This affects many A + D to “take the page out of the design of a medical facility.” They consider how the patch space can be weighed into therapeutic design and better developed mental and physical health without sacrificing safety and security.
Tenants
Many leading correctional architects and medical consultants see direct physical and mental connections with people who are in prison and those who are treated in medical and psychiatric institutions. Science clearly shows that many prisoners suffer from severe mental disorders and / or serious addictions — many of them lead to complicated diseases. Adding to the problems of an aging resident population, the influx of a “raging adolescent” and an increase in the number of female offenders, this creates a clear need for science-weighted environments that promote mental and physical well-being. In the medical world, these environments are highly valued and show that they reduce anxiety, positively change behavior and save costs. Существует множество исследований и данных для поддержки внедрения «терапевтических арендаторов», таких как дневное освещение в камерах заключенных и программных помещениях, пониженная акустика, доступ к природе (буквальный и образный) и использование более мягких материалов и стимулирующий цвет , Это продемонстрировано на основе «бизнес-моделей» исследовательских и медицинских учреждений, которые по мере уменьшения страхов уменьшают беспокойство; люди внутри становятся больше контента - все это создает более теплую и безопасную среду.
Заключение и дополнительная информация
Информация, содержащаяся в этом отрывном отчете, предназначена для руководства архитекторов, дизайнеров, планировщиков объектов, надзирателей, других тюремных администраторов, медицинских работников тюрьмы, психологов и социальных работников, которые взаимодействуют с поселенцами-заключенными. Это часть отчета, озаглавленного «Вклады цвета», автором которого является Тара Хилл, «Маленький рыбный мозг».
Г-жа Хилл была заказана Norix Group Inc. в 2010 году для исследования роли цветных игр в безопасной эксплуатации исправительных учреждений и центров поведенческого здоровья. Более подробную информацию о психологическом воздействии дизайна объектов цвета и исправлений можно найти, прочитав полный отчет.
Дополнительный материал для чтения:
Блог Норикса «Старый позади баров»
