© 2018 Gudrun Brottveit, Stefano Catucci, Rosalba D’Onofrio, Pier Matteo Fagnoni, Elisabeth Fransson, Inger Marie Fridhov, Loredana Giani, Francesca Giofrè, Linda Grøning, Yngve Hammerlin, Franz James, Berit Johnsen, “John K.”, Livia Porro, Tore Rokkan, Ferdinando Terranova and Elio Trusiani.
ISBN: 978-82-02-52967-3
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Chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 16 of this book have been peer-reviewed.
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This book is a result of collaboration between the Faculty of Architecture at Sapienza University in Rome and the Research department at the University College of Norwegian Correctional Service, KRUS, in Oslo. The collaboration goes back to 2001, when one of the editors had a university scholarship at La Sapienza.
Ferdinando Terranova, former professor at the Faculty of Architecture at La Sapienza University in Rome, has played a key role in the network. He has always insisted that collaboration between our countries is of great importance regarding prison architecture, as well as being important in terms of sharing and discussing various analytical and methodological possibilities within architecture and penology.
In 2014 the Research department at KRUS was invited to and visited various institutions in Rome: the Facilities of the Penitentiary Services within the Ministry of Justice, La Rebibbia Prison and Garante dei Detenuti, which is an independent organization working for the rights of prisoners. The year after, in 2015, KRUS arranged the first seminar «Prison, Materiality & Humans». Through the seminar, we wanted to create an opportunity to discuss prison space and enable closer cooperation between researchers, architects and those involved in planning and constructing prisons. To this seminar Italian architects and researchers were invited, among others, to presented their study fields within prison architecture. Their presentations fit very well into the long empirical and theoretical research tradition at KRUS regarding prison, materiality and the imprisoned body. We also invited our Italian guests to visit Halden Prison. After the seminar we started the PriArcH network and the planning of this book.
Our common interests in prison architecture and humans have also been nurtured through other various connections, relations and networks – all important for this book. Here we will just mention some of the input we see as particularly important. One, has been the possibility to present papers at EUROCRIM in Porto and Münster. Also vital was participation in the Deleuze seminar and conference in Rome in 2016, as well as the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society at the British Geographers Institute in London in 2015, and the first conference on ‘Carceral Geography’ in Birmingham in 2016. The collaboration between KRUS and Franz James – University of Gothenburg, Gudrun Brottveit – Østfold University College and Linda Grøning – University of Bergen has been inspiring, and represents a valuable contribution to this book.
On the Italian side, interest for the topic arises through different networks with colleagues inside Sapienza University of Rome, University of Camerino, European University of Rome and an Italian architectural firm named Fagnoni&Associate, who worked on the design of a prototype prison that we will introduce to the readers in this book. In the future we aim to extend our networks to involve more academics and more design experts, believing that the strength of the network is the multidisciplinary approach to the topic Prison Architecture and Humans.
The legacy of the classics within sociology and criminology with names such as Michel Foucault, Erving Goffman, Gresham M. Sykes has been important, but collaboration with Professor Terranova has also opened our gaze to the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci. On the other hand, the Norwegian pioneer in the field of criminology, Nils Christie, who has been translated into Italian, has been inspiring to both parties. The organized tightness and pain associated with isolation from society has a crucial impact on research both in the KRUS research tradition, as well as La Sapienza’s work regarding the architecture of various types of health and social institutions.
We dedicate this book to Professor Ferdinando Terranova! Thank you for inviting the KRUS research group to Rome and for showing us around, as well as for the idea of seminars and the suggestion to make this book. We also thank you for coming to Norway and, in the “old academic seminar way”, introducing us to Antonio Gramsci’s work. Moreover we are grateful to you for bringing researchers together in a very familiar way, insisting that Italy and Norway are countries that have to collaborate!
Oslo/Rome
Elisabeth Fransson, Francesca Giofrè and Berit Johnsen
As part of her doctoral thesis financed by the Norwegian Research Council, Elisabeth Fransson received one year of scholarship from the council to study residential child care institutions in Italy.
These lines from “Lettere dal carcere” (1947) were written by the Italian politician and philosopher Antonio Gramsci. His letters give a detailed description of prison architecture as well as how prison life affects the body in the way he sees his surroundings and hears sounds, and the way light finds its way into the cell and makes it possible for him to read. Gramsci, also a journalist, Communist and resistance fighter, was arrested in November 1926 by the Fascist regime in Italy. After a long time in custody he was in 1928 sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. He died in April 1937, just a few days after being released, 46 years old. The biographical material he left through his letters is of considerable historical and penological value and reminds us, among other things, of the importance of prison architecture and how the human body habituates to material conditions. Small details, like different objects and things, which in ordinary life outside prison seem insignificant and taken for granted, become important inside the prison in order to construct a meaningful existence.
The way Gramsci describes his cell tells us that this room and the space connected to it, hold his whole existence – simple, but at the same time very complex: in the bed he sleeps, lies awake, dreams, worries and feels the structure of his bed. With the aluminium objects he eats, feels his appetite and is reminded of food and meals outside prison, and with the help of the basin and pitcher he washes himself and tries to uphold some measure of hygiene and an acceptable appearance. In the mirror he can see an image of himself – of who he has become. In reading the books he – according to himself – works, but at the same time he is reminded of the ‘real work’ right beneath him as the prison design has placed the workshops there. Right outside the cell is the courtyard where he can be outside, but through the narrow window he only gets a glimpse of the sky. The rest of the prison landscape and its surroundings are hidden from him. Everything he needs is in one sense provided, for example shelter, food, various utensils and health service (the last, though, was badly met in Gramsci’s case). On the other hand everything is taken away from him. Gramsci’s description is therefore extraordinary in describing what Goffman (
Our point of departure in this book project is to explore prison architecture in terms of how materiality, place and space intertwine with people’s experiences of a prison – how it is experienced, how it is assumed to be experienced, and how it should be experienced – and how materiality, place and space appear in different contexts. Prison, architecture and humans are, in this anthology, understood as related concepts. We draw upon a complex and reflexive cultural concept, understanding prison architecture as both discursive, relational and historical.
The earliest definition of architecture and its obligations is from ancient history. Vitruvius wrote in the first century BCE Ten Books of Architecture:
In the narrow understanding of the concept of architecture, it involves art or science to plan the design of a man-made environment - the meeting between man-made space and nature, and the interaction between man and his surroundings. The architecture icon, Arne Gunnarsjaa reproduces several earlier definitions, in order to attempt to make a summary definition:
The Swedish historian of architecture Elias Cornell (
Someone who has had a far-reaching and significant impact on both the practice and thinking of architecture since the 1980s, is the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. In the book “What Is Philosophy?” Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (
The philosopher’s answer to ‘‘What is philosophy?” is always already architectural when they say it is ‘‘the art of forming, inventing and fabricating concepts” (Deleuze and Guattari,
The work of Deleuze has contributed to critical approaches regarding ecological, political and social problems that architecture has to deal with, and to the relationship between aesthetics and ethics. He manages to think otherwise and at the same time reinforces architecture’s relevance to philosophy. The discussion about the link between philosophy and architecture may relate to the assumption that architecture has to do with built projects. It is however valuable to understand architecture as “thinking-doing” because when architecture is practiced and a prison is constructed, immanent in all this activity the productive role of critical and creative thinking continues:
One example of how Deleuze has inspired others creatively is, among others, in an essay from 1996 where Elizabeth Diller introduces the “crease metaphor” (Diller,
The crease
According to the Norwegian philosopher Dag Østerberg (
Looking at prison architecture in this way, as open and dynamic, we are able to notice people who want or do not want to belong, follow or develop interests, identify or do not identify with a place. In this book, we not only focus on prison architecture as buildings, and other physical installations, but also as social constructions and mental images. A prison is understood as a place in a process of becoming through people’s experiences, because of the circulation of stories and representations that together construct a picture of what place a particular prison is (Røe,
Prison research in Norway has traditionally been more oriented towards other Nordic and Anglo-Saxon countries than continental countries like Italy, France and Germany. It is often easier to look to and generalize from countries that we presume are more like Norway. A collage of Italian and Norwegian texts on prison architecture and humans is interesting for several reasons. They are both countries who lock up people for shorter or longer periods of time, but in different quanta and in different kinds of prisons and units. It is possible that the differences in, for example, welfare systems and catholic versus protestant cultures are reflected in perspectives on punishment, re-integration and reconciliation. Important theoretical influences from Cesare Beccaria, Antonio Gramsci and Georgio Agamben have had and still have today a major impact on the scientific community, offering interesting perspectives that could also stimulate the Norwegian discussion on prison architecture. On the other hand, Norwegian pioneers within criminology, like Nils Christie and Thomas Mathiesen, may offer interesting approaches within the Italian scientific community.
Writing a book on prison, architecture and humans from an Italian and a Norwegian perspective, includes a kind of comparison even if this is not a comparative study. Some distinctions do occur in the texts, but our intention is not to pursue these further here. However, we hope that distinctions could lead to reflection and to new research questions and perspectives regarding prison architecture and humans. It is important to mention that similarities and differences are not phenomes lying there as objective phenomena ready to grasp. They are developed through a process of comparison (Krogstad
The book draws together a collage of independent multidisciplinary contributions discussing places and spaces where punishment takes place. It is important to emphasize that the contributors themselves have chosen the topics and studies they present. The chapters stand alone and do not represent conditions in Norway or Italy. The texts are written by researchers and architects who work within different disciplinary traditions, practice fields and within various methodological traditions. In different ways the authors are occupied and inspired by theories and approaches within their own and other disciplines, by epistemological and methodological issues, as well as recent developments in their own countries. According to Nelken (
Socio-materiality has in later years had renewed interest and significance inspired by concepts such as the spatial and materialistic turn and other concepts that we as researchers ponder (see Hammerlin in
The book is an invitation to move into different prison landscapes and let pictures, theory, ideas and affects directly and indirectly enable reflection on connections and disruptions, lines and dilemmas related to prison architecture and humans. We ask: What impact and meaning do various types of prisons have for prisoners’ lives? How is it to be young and imprisoned? How do women talk about their cells? How can prison architecture be studied? What can prison architecture breathe into the process of becoming within prisons, and does it contribute to becoming somebody else than a prisoner? What is the relationship between prison architecture and the imprisoned body? How are concepts like humanism, dignity and solidarity translated into prison architecture? Could we think otherwise regarding the prison landscape in between the prison buildings? What is the outside and the inside of a prison? What is the connection between prison architecture, ideology and aims of punishment and scientific knowledge? These questions are all brought up through the various chapters in this volume.
The book is organized in three parts: 1) architecture and the prison landscape; 2) perspectives on humans, prison space and the imprisoned body; and 3) prison ideology and aims of punishment. A brief introduction of each part will be placed in the beginning of the various sections of the book. Before the introduction of the first part, and with a link to Gramsci, we are pleased to present John K.’s reflections on prison architecture and how it affects the body.
Vituvius “De Architettura” in Arts and Humanities Through the Eras ID: ISBN: 978-0-7876-9384-8
Diller’s essay points to a discussion regarding the “fold” metaphor as a discourse for poststructuralist architecture. For readers interested in this debate regarding architectural acts and pattern-making and various positions regarding Deleuzian positionings we refer to Burns (2013).
Describing how buildings, colours, designs and furnishings can affect people is beyond my understanding. I know that a lot of research has been done into how institutions should be built and designed, but I have never concerned myself with this and must say that giving more weight to these materialistic aspects than to human relationships amazes me. You can guess from my opening statement where I stand in respect to this topic. I will attempt to explain my point of view, and my conclusions will surely surprise scientists, architects and interior designers. But this is what I believe, and the following reflects my perception of reality.
I served several years of a long sentence in Halden Prison. These were difficult years for me and I look back on them with pain and bitterness. Halden Prison is Norway’s newest, and possibly one of the most talked about prisons in the world. That at least is what we inmates were told. “Welcome to Europe’s most humane prison”. Considering the rest of the world’s attitude to imprisonment, you may well assume they meant that Halden is the world’s most humane prison. Halden Prison was completed in 2010 and was built in the middle of nowhere near a small town called Halden in the county of Østfold. This is off the beaten track and far from civilization. The world’s “most humane prison” was built here, away from the town, so as not to annoy the few people who, by their own choice, have settled in this small town. Halden is really just the gateway to the Swedish town of Svinesund where Norwegians cross the border to buy cheap meat.
The prison was built far from man and beast. It was built out here in the woods and, as a modern prison, it was constructed so that nature could be preserved within the walls. Halden Prison was to be built on a different plan to all other prisons in the country. Several buildings were erected in an area with lots of woods and wild Norwegian nature. The trees were to be preserved and function as green “lungs” for the great pleasure and recreation of the inmates. (I could not help slipping in that bit of typical Norwegian irony).
When I arrived at Halden Prison, I was in shock. I had just confessed my crime and struggled hard to accept what I had done. I was seeking human contact, I cried and I had difficulty getting through each day. I asked for help, I asked for a psychologist, but no help was available. The prison did not have the capacity to give me an appointment with a psychologist. I was locked up with cruel thoughts, deep remorse and a fierce desire to escape from my situation. I did not want to escape from prison, but to escape from my own body, leaving all those I had failed and would continue to fail by being absent for many years.
So, here I sit in Halden Prison. Beautiful nature! Trees outside my window! A peace and quiet I simply was not used to. I am an Oslo lad, a “townie”, and will remain so until this lonely body gasps its last breath. The fact that so-called experts have decided that Norwegian nature, trees and silence will be good for me makes me more angry than you can imagine. I wasn’t aware of my surroundings at first. How could I be? My mind bubbled, my brain was working overtime, my emotions tore my heart into pieces and I missed those I loved. This caused me so much internal
The colours in Halden Prison are, I’m told, intended to be calming and soothing. I am a man, an honest man used to speaking my mind. It is possible that research has proven that different colours elicit different moods in humans. But it does not make sense to me in my situation. Choice of colours seems a trifling irrelevance when I am locked up in a place without the help I need to deal with my internal demons. That is just how it is with me. I was suffering so much that I was not aware of the colours around me and they had no meaning. I did not see anything clearly, not colour, not the future, not the present … everything was just full of pain. Looking back, I was living the life of a zombie. In some periods I was an outgoing windbag, in others I could be silent and detached. It was my mood that decided who I was and who I socialized with. That is what really mattered: who I met, how I behaved and how I related to other inmates. I always try to be polite and if I like the person I am talking to, I can joke and be open. However, if I do not like the person I am talking to, I tend to retreat politely. I think most people are like this. People are influenced by those they interact with. Further, I think I have some degree of colour blindness! (Part joke, part truth)
Interior…if interior means furniture, then I admit to being more aware of fixtures and fittings than of colours as I like to have things neat and tidy around me. As I managed to put some of the pain behind me, I actually began to notice that the furniture in Halden Prison was totally neutral in form, without any distinctive design. All departments were alike: grey sofas; square, beech coffee tables; white dining tables and white/steel kitchen furnishings. The cells were all furnished in beech: a bed, a desk, a chair, a cupboard. Everything is neutral – as though taken from an absurd catalogue of minimalist cell-furniture where Halden Prison was the finest model on display!
On several occasions, I have been told to my face: “The prisoners in Halden have even got their own bathrooms - with tiles on the walls.” My response to this is: Yes, we all had our own bathroom. A bathroom that can be compared to one in the cheapest cabin on an overnight ferry. I accept that prisoners are not entitled to a private bathroom, but the point of this article is to comment on how inmates are influenced by the prison environment. In this respect, I would point out that these bathrooms are only just sufficient for a grown man to maintain a basic level of personal hygiene. White tiles and a shower do not impress me. I’m not saying this because I was dissatisfied, but because, again, they seem totally unimportant to the pain I was still bearing. A tiled bathroom is not a substitute for a hug from someone who wishes you well. A tiled bathroom could not remove the sense of desolation. A tiled bathroom does not make you happy.
Other inmates played an important role in my life in prison. It may surprise some people to discover the degree to which intrigue is a central part of prison life. I believe this applies to all prisons, independent of security level or in which country they are found. I am still serving the same sentence for which I was sent to Halden prison. This is my first and only conviction and all my impressions should be understood as based on this first-time experience. I had no prior experience of prison life. Looking back, I see that my image and the way I presented myself to others resulted in me building a wall around myself. I am
I have now written a bit about other inmates, but there are others we have to relate to: the employees. The fact that I am no longer serving my sentence in Halden Prison, allows me to write more generally about the staff. For there are always good and bad staff in all workplaces. I have heard staff uttering vicious comments intended to provoke or hurt, and I have met empathetic staff who, in spite of the constraints imposed by the regulations, still manage to convey a caring attitude and let you know that they wish you well. Just seeing such an employee gives hope for better times.
I have met employees who suspect you of planning manipulation or deception. And if a female employee shows care and understanding, some will interpret this as attempted seduction. But I have encountered staff willing to offer something approaching friendship – something that contributes to a feeling of self-worth. The staff in a prison play an enormous role in the life of inmates. Being locked up for so many hours a day, belief in human dignity counts for more than anything else. That is all that is needed – just to be respected as another human being. You just long to be treated normally.
I am now serving my sentence in a low security (open) prison. It is not fantastic here either. I am a prisoner, I am bound to a place I do not want to be in and I am deprived of time with my loved ones. This prison is old and shows the wear and tear of heavy use by the all people who have passed through it. When I came here, to Bastøy Prison
After a period in the main building on Bastøy one is eventually transferred to a house with one’s own separate room. I still share a bathroom with several men, but that is OK. The place is worn and equipped with furniture from the 90s, but that is not important either. Colours are from 80/90s or freshly painted in sterile white, but we may hang up pictures and “decorate” as we wish. In a strange way, this is a cosy existence. We are allowed to personalize our house and in an important way this makes life just that little bit easier. We feel we are allowed to live almost like “ordinary people” and not as models in a photo in a glossy magazine, in which an artist has been asked to show what he thinks a modern prison should be like. Here, I feel a calm and am not continually reminded that I’m somewhere other than where I want to be.
In Halden Prison, I was constantly being reminded that I was a prisoner, of less value than prison officers, and I existed at their mercy. There were some good employees who tried to improve the daily lives of us inmates but there was little they could do. When I came to Bastøy Prison, I was given responsibility and shown trust. I have a job where I sometimes forget that I am in a prison. This is of course my own denial of reality but it helps me to make the days pass. I have a boss who I see as boss and who treats me like a human being. I feel I have value because the boss and several employees see me as a person. I do not care about colours and modern buildings; I care about the people that give me a feeling of personal value. I hope they understand that the way that they treat us inmates – all over the world – is far more helpful than an artist smartening up the walls and choosing the colours to be used in prisons.
Someone has decided to focus on the prison environment for inmates and I have been asked to comment on the materialistic aspect. I am unable to see the value of this exercise and and in fact find it quite amusing. But I still want to make my contribution in the hope that someone might listen. My hope is that some researcher may open his eyes and see how vulnerable the human spirit is. Location, colour and furniture are no substitute for the need of humans to feel that they belong, to be accepted, to be recognized and possibly even forgiven. I have been placed somewhere I do not want to be. I know I deserve it and the only forgiveness I really seek is from those I am kept away from. With my hand on my heart I can say that the world’s most humane prison, decorated by artists and architects crushed me more than I had thought possible. It is only now, here in the old, worn-out, obsolete prison that I begin to feel dignity again. My maxim is:
Editors note: Bastøy Prison is on the island of Bastøy in the Oslo Fjord. The island is not exclusively a prison area and a popular site for visitors, particularly in summer.
In the first section we will present methods, theories, empirical data and prototypes that architects and researchers use when studying and planning prisons and prison landscapes.
In the next article, “Prison, Cities and Urban Planning” (
The last contribution in this section (
How can the software Google Earth Pro contribute to our knowledge of prison architecture, territory and space? This chapter presents a morphological and dimensional analysis of seven Italian and six Norwegian prisons, which aims to relate these physical data to other kinds of information collected by official sources and prisons, such as, the construction period, the urban pattern where they are placed, and the kind and number of people housed. The aim of the article is to show the methodology applied and to discuss the results in terms of differences and similarities among the Italian and Norwegian prisons, being aware that the placement in the terrain, the size of the prisons, and the composition of the different parts of the prison complex (fences, guard towers, buildings, open spaces and more) are an expression of culture and ideology. They reflect penitentiary laws and regulation, and the culture of imprisonment in each country.
In order to analyze the ‘materiality aspects’ of the prison complex we followed the methodology already experimented with in a study of hospital buildings in Italy (Giofrè,
To analyze the prison complexes, we applied the computer software Google Earth Pro. We made satellite images of each prison selected, at a height of about 1.5 km above the ground, and carried out a survey of all the spaces within in the prison complex.
We first defined the elements necessary to highlight, in order to better understand the borders in terms of access and control systems, external and internal barriers, and the use of the spaces, built and unbuilt and, where possible to read, their use.
We analyzed the access and control systems, pointing out:
- Entrances, both pedestrian and vehicular.
- Guard towers.
- Barriers separating the prisons from the cities:
- Light metal fences (height up to 2 meters, or consisting of removable meshes).
- Heavy metal fences (over 2 meters, permanent).
- Walls.
We identified seven different functional sites:
- Buildings.
- Circulation areas.
- Open spaces bordered by a chain-link fence (terraces and open spaces adjacent to the prison cells).
- Outdoor parking areas, including the ones devoted to visitors and to workers.
- Green spaces (including, in some cases, cultivated areas).
- Outdoor sports areas, for example, football and volleyball courts.
- New construction areas.
Thanks to the advanced measurement tools of Google Earth Pro, we were able to read the typology of the accesses, control systems and barriers, and the functional site in each area. We obtained the dimensional data for all these surfaces, and we calculated the total amount of built and unbuilt spaces, and the relationships among these. We must point out a critical aspect of this study: the detention facilities were investigated only through an indirect analysis, without conducting on-site surveys.
We identified seven Italian and six Norwegian case studies, basing the selection mainly on the size of the prison complexes and on the detention purpose.
Among the Italian case studies, we selected four “case circondariali” and three “case di reclusione” (see
The Italian prisons chosen for analysis among ‘case circondariali’ are:
Poggioreale “Giuseppe Salvia” in the city of Naples, Region of Campania: an ancient one that accommodates 1,928 people.
Rebibbia in the city of Rome, Region of Lazio, a vast complex divided into four parts, housing 325 people in the female district jail (“Germana Stefanini”), 1,384 people in the “Raffaele Cinotti” district jail, 81 people in the “Rebibbia terza casa” district jail and 331 people in the “Rebibbia” prison.
Lorusso e Cutugno in the city of Turin, Region of Piedmont. The complex, built around the year 1980 and further expanded in the years 1990–2000, has a real capacity of 1,162 people.
Pagliarelli, in the city of Palermo, Region of Sicily, also built around 1980, it houses 1,150 people.
Among the ‘case di reclusione’, we have selected:
Parma. Region of Emilia Romagna, a quite recent complex (built starting in 1990), that accommodates 552 people.
Ucciardone - Palermo. Region of Sicily, a complex built in several phases, starting from the Bourbon Age (mid 18th century), housing 347 people.
Volterra - Pisa. Region of Tuscany, is the oldest prison analyzed (since it was built back in 1474) and has a real capacity of 140 people.
Among the Norwegian prisons, the selection was done according to prison size. We chose two big prisons of over 100 prisoners, two middle size prisons with from 50–100 prisoners, and two small prisons with less than 50 prisoners.
Big prisons in Norway are the ones with over 100 prisoners, such as Halden and Oslo Prison.
Halden is one of the biggest prisons in Norway. It is a high security complex with a regulatory capacity of 259.
Oslo Prison is also a high security closed prison. The capacity here has gone down from 392 prisoners to 220. The prison was built in 1851.
Middle-sized prisons in Norway house from 50 to 100 prisoners.
Telemark Prison, Skien division is such a prison. This is a closed prison for 82 prisoners, housing both women and men. Every prisoner starts out in the incoming unit, division “A”. The prison also has a drug treatment division, and was built in 1993.
We considered small prisons that accommodate up to 50 prisoners.
The Youth Unit at Bjørgvin prison in Bergen is one of these. This is one of the two closed prisons in Norway that takes 4 children and youths between 15–18 years. The prison was ready in 2009.
Ålesund Prison is a closed prison with rooms for 27 prisoners. It was built in 1864.
Eidsvoll is a recently re-organized prison, housing 4 children and youths between 15–18 years. The prison was opened in 2016.
In the following profiles, we illustrate the analysis of each case study, elaborated using the above mentioned methodology, with extra information gathered for the Italian prisons from the Informatics Service of the Ministry of Justice. In Norway, the information was given directly by the prison heads or other personnel in each prison.
We designed a profile for each case study, organized in a homogeneous way; these profiles allow us to discuss a final comparison. More precisely the 13 profiles present the following data:
- The first image, on the left, indicates the location of the prison in the country.
- The following data present the year of construction, the regulatory and the real capacity, the distance from the city center, number of women and of foreign detainees, and a list of the main common indoor spaces and services available.
- The ideogram, on the right, shows the relationship between the prison and the terrain. It highlights the boundaries of the city center area, the localization of the prison, main street axes, main natural elements, and the distance between the prison and the city center area.
- A brief description illustrates the main features of the prison and the building typology.
- In the satellite image, we highlighted the above mentioned typologies of boundaries (accesses and control systems) and of the seven functional sites, we elaborated charts that show their percentages and the ratio of built to unbuilt spaces.
What is classified as a “small”, “medium” and “large” prison is different in Italy and Norway. A big prison in Italy could house more than 1,000 prisoners, while the biggest prison in Norway accommodates 300. However we have to consider that Italy has about 60 million inhabitants and Norway about 5 million. Since the surface areas in sq.km. for Norway and Italy are not so different (385,203 and 301,338), the density in Italy is about 200 inhabitants per sq.km. while in Norway it is only about 14 inhabitants per sq.km. Not only are the numbers different, but also the concept of prison design. In our analysis we have therefore modified and used size (big, medium and small) in a way that seems relevant within both the Italian and Norwegian systems.
Initial data from the comparisons show that the position of the prisons in the territorial context has been modified as time has gone by. The choice of the areas devoted to prison complexes moved from the center of the cities in Italy to suburban and rural areas over the years. That fact emerges particularly in the Italian case studies. In fact, the ones placed inside the historical urban pattern of the city (“center of the city” in Chart n. 1) are, in Italy: the prison of Volterra, constructed during the Medici Age (more precisely, 1474) in the center of a small village; and the Ucciardone Prison in Palermo, erected during the Bourbon Age (1734 to 1860). An urban area was also utilized in the construction of Poggioreale prison in 1905.
In the second half of the 20th century, prisons started to be erected in suburban areas. Here we find Rebibbia, built in an area that was rural at the time of construction (started in 1946), and which is now the suburban pattern of the city of Rome. Also, Lorusso e Cutugno Prison (around 1980) is in the suburbs of the city of Turin, and the Pagliarelli prison (also around 1980) is in the suburban area of the city of Palermo. In Norway, both Oslo Prison and Ålesund Prison, built in 1851 and 1864, were originally placed outside the city, but since the city expanded they are now located within the center of the city.
In rural areas, we find prisons built in the last three decades, in Italy as well as in Norway. This is the case in Parma in Italy (1990), and in Norway in Telemark (1993), Halden (2010), the Youth Unit West, Bjørgvin (2014) and the Youth Unit East, Eidsvoll (2016).
These findings confirm that, in these cases, there is the will to move, or to build, prisons far from the consolidated city, away from people and their sight, preventing integration with community life. The prison is “something” that nobody wants “in his backyard”, as illustrated in the model below.
Analyzing the morphology and typology of the fences in the various prisons, we found that, for the external ones, straight and linear fences were used, in some cases curvilinear barriers, and sometimes a combination of both types. In the chart below, we show the use of three kinds of fences (light metallic ones, heavy metallic ones, and walls), and the presence of internal barriers, separating the parts of the prisons.
With respect to morphology, we point out that only in Norway did we find external barriers that were totally curvilinear (Halden Prison, Telemark Prison, and the Youth Unit West at Bjørgvin). While in Italy, most of the case studies show a system of straight external fences (Poggioreale, Rebibbia, Lorusso e Cutugno, Pagliarelli, Parma).
This shows us the attention given to the external image of the prison: the straight linear, barrier is used to mark the strength of the punishment authority, and the separation intent. On the other hand, the curvilinear barrier suggests a more welcoming environment. Contemporary Italian experimental design seems to be heading in this direction (see the project presented in
Internal barriers are mostly an Italian feature, existing in all case studies, except Volterra, while in Norway they are only present in Oslo Prison. This reveals something interesting about the cultures of Italy and Norway in relation to penitentiary ideology and prison architecture. Below we see an illustration of the types of fences in the various prisons in Italy and Norway.
Comparing the sizes of the functional sites (buildings, circulation areas, bordered open spaces, outdoor parking areas, green spaces, outdoor sports areas, and new construction areas: see chart n. 2) of each structure, we found that the percentages are quite varied, but there are some common aspects.
With respect to the availability and use of green and sports spaces, the smallest percentages are in Poggioreale (4% green spaces and 1% outdoor sports areas, devoted to a football field), and in Volterra, where a small outdoor courtyard is used as a walk-in area with gym equipment, a bowling alley and a small concrete football field (13% green spaces and 2% outdoor sports areas). In Lorusso e Cutugno prison (13% green spaces and 4% outdoor sports areas), the outdoor spaces are well equipped, and an outdoor area for talks with underage sons is available. The same percentage is available in Ålesund Prison (17% green spaces). For between 20% and 30 % of green and sports spaces, we find two ancient prisons: Oslo Prison, where the green spaces are well maintained but not cultivated, and two football fields (22% green spaces and 4% outdoor sports areas); and Ucciardone, where similarly the green spaces are well maintained but not cultivated, and there is a playground for detainees with children under 14 years (26% green spaces and 4% outdoor sports areas). Three Italian prisons and one Norwegian have a percentage of green and sports spaces of between 40% and 60%: Pagliarelli, with several cultivated green areas and outdoor sports places, and an outdoor area for talks with relatives (40% green spaces and 2% outdoor sports areas); Parma where the several green spaces are well maintained but not cultivated (39% green spaces and 5% outdoor sports areas); Rebibbia, with several cultivated green areas and outdoor sports places, and, in the female section, a playground available for children (40% green spaces and 7% outdoor sports areas); and, in Norway, the Youth Unit East at Eidsvoll (54% green spaces, and no outdoor sports areas).
The three prisons that show the biggest percentages of green and sports areas are all in Norway: the Youth Unit West Bjørgvin, where the green areas are partially devoted to animals and vegetables cultivation (59% green spaces and 4% outdoor sports areas); and Halden Prison, where the green spaces are well maintained but not cultivated, and there is a football field (66% green spaces and 2% outdoor sports areas). The greenest prison, among the ones analyzed, is Telemark, where the green spaces are well maintained but not cultivated, and two football fields are available (65% green spaces and 6% outdoor sports areas).
In addition, the presence of exercise yards, also called bordered open spaces, is much more common in the Italian case studies than in Norwegian ones, according to each detention regulation.
One important thing to stress here is how the green spaces are used. Are the prisoners allowed to use them? In what way? And when? In
Furthermore, when we started to make comparisons regarding inside spaces, we saw an interesting difference. Analyzing the different functions of various prisons, we saw for instance that in Italy
It is important to emphasize that resemblances and differences are not objective phenomena that are easy to grasp. Rather, something is developed through a process of comparison (Krogstad,
The prison has during the last few years built some doublets; meaning that two prisoners share the same room. This means that the prison has a total capacity of 259 prisoners.
Prisoner
This article discusses the arrangement and movement of bodies in the prison landscape. The focus is on closed prisons and the practice of leisure activities. The keeping of bodies ‘in place’ limits what a body can do in that the prisoners’ possibility to affect, be affected and create relations with their surroundings becomes limited. This also concerns the practice of leisure activities, which mostly happen in places especially designed for this purpose. The principle of normalisation is concerned with bringing the outside into the inside. ‘Too much’ of the outside inside, in relation to facilities, the facilitation and the function of leisure activities, is often criticised in presentations of the inside, as too luxurious, or the prisoners having too good of a time in prison. However, leisure activities are supposed to be experienced as pleasurable and meaningful, and it is argued that this is how leisure activities should be for prisoners too. Efforts should therefore be made to use both time and space in facilitating such activities for the sake of the prisoners’ wellbeing and health. To extend the limit of what a body can do will give prisoners the opportunity to affect, to be affected and to create new relations that could also have positive outcomes for the prisoners’ rehabilitation.
The physical environment in Norwegian prisons shows a great variety. On the one hand are the open prisons, like Hassel and Leira, where it is difficult to determine where the outside ends and the inside of the prison actually begins, because there are no walls or fences. On the other hand are the prisons with a high security level (closed prisons), like Halden Prison. These prisons are separated from their surroundings by walls and fences, and in order to enter the inside of the prison, one has to pass through a gate in the wall. Besides the wall, the most noticeable features in the physical environment of a closed prison are buildings, fences, exercise yards, electric pylons and paths; and common to most prisons, these are spread out on a comparatively flat piece of land. There may also be vegetation such as lawns and perhaps trees, flowers, rocks, heather and moss on this one piece of land. The vegetation might be inside the yards, but mostly in-between the facilities. Altogether, the composition of the walls, buildings, fences, vegetation and so on form a space (a discursive practice of a place [Conley,
In this article, I will discuss the arrangement and movement of bodies in the landscape of closed prisons, and I will focus especially on the practice of leisure activities. Literature on prison architecture and carceral geography has introduced me to the field of human geography (see e.g. Grant and Jewkes,
Sykes’ description of the admittance of a prisoner is quite characteristic when entering a closed prison, also in Norway. After the procedures described above, the prisoner is typically taken to a reception unit – alternatively to a remand unit if a sentence has not been passed – where (s)he spends the first weeks or months. Thereafter (s)he is moved to an ordinary living unit or block. If the prisoner is considered to be difficult or unsuited to living in a regular unit, for example because of mental problems or illnesses, (s)he may be transferred to a segregation unit or to a unit for vulnerable prisoners. Towards the end of the sentence, the prisoner may be transferred to an open unit and later to a halfway house. This transfer between different living facilities with altered functions throughout the serving of the sentence is, especially when moving to more open facilities, built on trust and systems of privileges (Goffman,
On a daily basis, prisoners attend school or workshops for the purpose of education, production or simply to keep them occupied. Exercise yards are areas designated for the purpose of sports or exercise outdoors, and indoors there may be fitness studios and gymnasiums for exercise and other cultural activities. There are churches or other facilities for spiritual activities, and there are facilities for providing health services where the prisoners can consult nurses, doctors, dentists, etc. There are also rooms, houses or areas where prisoners can receive visits from family and friends. All these places are ‘functional sites’, which means they should be useful in some way (Foucault,
The movement of bodies in the prison landscape follows spatial arrangements especially designed for this, like pathways, which may be surrounded by more or less visible and invisible borders. Walls, fences and locked doors are obvious borders, through which bodies cannot move without having a key or first being identified. Technological solutions may be installed in order to identify staff and prisoners, and in Rebibbia prison in Rome prisoners move quite freely around in the prison by the use of ID-cards. Different types of ID-cards permit access to different parts of the prison, and prisoners may move by themselves to places where they are granted access. The invisible borders are more subtle and harder to spot if one is not familiar with the logic of movement in a prison: We (a group of Nordic prison researchers) visited a new prison in Jylland in Denmark in November 2008. The prison was spacious, and we could see a lot of the sky. Living blocks were spread around, and each of these had a yard separated from the rest of the prison by a fence. There were green lawns between the blocks, and pathways ran through the lawns connecting the blocks with each other and with the rest of the prison. Standing on a pathway looking at these flat and tempting green lawns I burst out: “What a fantastic football pitch!” “Oh, no”, replied the prison officer who followed us around, “It is forbidden to walk on the lawn”.
There are also visible borders that all bodies can pass, as, for example, marks on the floor or signs, ordering prisoners not to cross or move further (e.g. Ugelvik, I was standing together with a prisoner in the exercise yard. The yard was a gravel field, but where we stood, right by the entrance, there was a little pitch of grass as well. While talking to the prisoner, I was standing on the grass, and after a while, the prisoner made me aware that I was actually standing on the grass, which, he informed me, was not allowed. I wondered why, and he explained that the field of grass was close to the fence, and the staff did not tolerate prisoners being too near the fence. (Field notes 1997, cf. Johnsen,
‘Too near the fence’ is an interesting expression. I understood that being on the grass was defined as being ‘too near’ but what would be deemed ‘too near’ when there was no grass, only gravel? Most likely, this would be a discretionary decision made by staff guarding the exercise yard. Their definition of ‘too near’ could differ, which means that for the prisoners this is a fluctuating border.
One might ask, why all these borders in a closed prison? According to the [Norwegian] Regulations to the Execution of Sentences Act § 3-10, “Prisoners in a prison with a high security level must not be permitted to move freely around the prison’s buildings or other areas”.
According to Fox (
For Deleuze, a body “[…] is defined by the relations of its parts (relations of relative motion and rest, speed and slowness), and by its actions and reactions with respect both to its environment or milieu and to its internal milieu” (Baugh,
According to this ‘Deleuzian’ perspective, each prisoner, at each site and at any time, creates their own relations, engages in different assemblages and creates BwOs. However, the strict control and surveillance of the movement of the bodies in order to keep them ‘in place’ imposes restrictions upon what
The text above is from a documentary television program, where Arne Treholt, a Norwegian diplomat convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union in 1985, is standing in the exercise cell of approximately 10 x 2,5 metres with a “roof” of wires in Drammen Prison. Before he was convicted, Treholt spent 17 months remanded in custody, mostly in this prison, which is located on the top floors of the courthouse in the city of Drammen. For Treholt the movement of the body while running in the tiny room brought about some affects, mainly because of inward relations and processes in his body, such as increased pulse, sweat, repetitive steps and so on. In this BwO, the ‘running man’ becomes Treholt, and for a moment, he manages to conjure a BwO where he is running through a park. On this trip, he conjures relations to green lawns, paths, trees, flowers, fountains, water, sculptures, and so on, and in his mind, the landscape becomes a part of his BwO. The outside/inside distinction, which is well known from the literature on total institutions (Goffman,
To be affected and conjure up a BwO with the outside by running round and round in a place like a tiny cell cannot be easy. The desire to carry out leisure activities is related to the formations of different kinds of BwOs that vary from person to person. Some need to relate to other people and find that group activities can be most stimulating. Sometimes, special spaces designed for specific leisure activities are needed, such as football pitches, weight-training rooms, music studios, etc. Such spaces could be found in a prison as well, and sometimes prisoners have, for example, soccer teams that play in local leagues, where teams from the outside come into the prison and play matches. Other spaces, like yards, lawns, parks and forests, have a more multifunctional potential for different kinds of activities. Further, preserving some of the forest in the defined area constituting the inside of the prison while building it, like in Halden Prison, might be considered as bringing, or rather keeping, some of the outside inside. However, while people outside the prison can walk, run, play, and so on in green spaces like parks and forests, this is not necessarily so in a prison, as for example Halden Prison. An international news reportage, presented a picture of the rather extensive forest in this prison with the following comment: “Here the roughly 250 prisoners […] take walks in the park […]”
In Norwegian prisons, the concept ‘leisure’ is used to describe the time when the prisoners are not otherwise occupied with activities they are obliged to take part in during daytime, like school or work.
In the BwO Treholt creates while running, the ‘coping prisoner’ becomes Treholt, and he manages to survive an extremely difficult situation and ‘to sustain sanity in an insane place’ (Sabo,
Bringing the outside inside is actually what ‘normalisation’ is about. The principle of normalisation is central in the Norwegian Correctional Service and “[…] implies that the way of life in prison as far as possible should be like the general way of life in society” (Meld. St. 12 [
This part of a conversation is from a documentary television program, where a retired US Prison Governor is visiting Halden Prison. The scene of the conversation is the music studio, and as a part of the scene, the US Governor is sitting on a chair in front of a large master control glancing at the music equipment in the room.
Robène and Bodin (
Initiatives aimed at wellbeing and comfort in order to ease the burden of imprisonment are justified by the fact that imprisonment hurts and are, at a policy level in Norway, legitimate reasons to offer sports and other activities for prisoners. This perspective is supported by soft law measures on ‘exercise and recreation’.
Media reportages that present the inside to the outside, appeal to the public sense of justice and punishment as deserved. Accepting that punishment is an initiative in the name of crime prevention (see Fridhov and Gröning, this volume), the public is also concerned about bringing people from the inside to the outside. It is in this perspective that rehabilitation is applicable, and rehabilitation in relation to leisure activities is perhaps easiest to understand and accept when the prisoners bring with them these activities from the inside to the outside when they are released. This could give them meaningful leisure time on the outside, which could contribute to a lowered risk of committing new crimes (c.f. the quotation of the General Director above). However, prisoners find it difficult to perceive the long-term effects of their involvement in sports activities beyond the period of imprisonment (Gallant et. al.,
To ease the burden of imprisonment, to sustain sanity in an insane place, to avoid gaining weight also have importance for the kind of people that are released from prison. It is very likely that the more healthy and self-confident ex-prisoners are, the greater chance they have to create relationships and BwOs that would help them stay away from crime.
As leisure activities are easily accepted in assemblages of rehabilitation, there are leisure activities that are considered to have quite the opposite effect. Such an activity is weight training, which is one of the most popular leisure activities among (male) prisoners (Johnsen,
What ‘Kim’ in the quotation above asks for is a break in the structured time-based rhythm that organises prison life. He does not want to be a part of the BwOs that prisoners in the weight training room create when they exercise, because in these BwOs he is uncomfortable. His desire is to adapt this activity to his own rhythm where he could create the BwO that he wants. However, access to gym facilities and exercise yards in a closed prison mostly follows a schedule that regulates when the different units have access to which facility. If a prisoner wants to work out in the weight training room, (s)he has to follow the schedule and work out when his/her unit is set up for this facility, which could, for example, be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 5 pm to 7 pm. At these times, prisoners from the unit move to the gym, and most likely prison officers from the same unit will follow the prisoners to the sports facility and guard them during the exercise. With this arrangement, BwOs are kept ‘in place’, and the prison officers know the number of bodies in the gym, and the number of bodies remaining in the unit. In such a rigid routine, prisoners in the gym when they want to exercise for themselves are BwOs ‘out of place’ and a risk to the maintenance of safety and security in the prison.
However, as stated by ‘Kim’, in between the daily chores in a prison, there is time available to carry out meaningful leisure activities. According to staff in Halden prison, prisoners, like ‘Kim’ have had the opportunity to use sports facilities in between the scheduled times, but this has stopped for some reason. During the day, it is understandable that prisoners have to conform to the routine of working hours. It is, though, quite common for many employees (i.e. not prisoners) in Norway to have an hour or so of exercise included as part of their working week. My question is: Is it possible to include such an arrangement in prison and still keep the BwOs in place?
Leisure activities
Little (
In a discussion about the ‘green prison’, prison architecture, design and space Moran and Jewkes (
Yes, there is a focus on rehabilitation in Norwegian prisons. However, throughout this article I have problematised how restrictions in movement in the prison landscape and the territorialisation of spaces put limits on what the prisoners’ bodies can do and how they can be affected when practicing leisure activities. Even Halden Prison – which is one of the prisons Moran and Jewkes (ibid.) refer to – with its bar-less windows and plenty of outdoor space,
Norway is in the process of building a new prison in Agder in the southern part of Norway. Also for this prison, the “[…] design and construction are driven by the imperatives of (low) cost and (high) security […]“ (Jewkes and Moran,
It is easier to recognise the value of green places, gym facilities, music rooms and so on, and the value of allowing extended use of these facilities if they are incorporated into assemblages of normalisation rather than assemblages of learning. It is not only the notion ‘normalisation’ that is of importance here, but also the concept ‘assemblage’, because this encourages the idea of the relational aspect of rehabilitation and the prisoners possibility to construct BwOs. For example, a music studio might be used to record music, like a lullaby, and sent to the prisoners’ children so they can hear dad or mum singing before they go asleep. In this way, the relationship between the parent and child becomes more lively, and it can make the parent more present in the child’s BwO. To interpret leisure activities in assemblages of normalisation also means to deterritorialise the function of these activities. The legitimacy of these activities is then to be found in the idea that prisoners engage in leisure activities for the same reasons that people outside the prison do. Just as other people outside do, prisoners exercise, play music and so on for their own benefit or pleasure. They do this in order to affect and be affected and experience wellbeing and health outcomes, which for many prisoners also will have a positive impact on life after imprisonment. Without applying this meaning of the term ‘leisure activities’ in prison, it could be questioned whether the prisoners really have the opportunity of leisure activities at all.
See
«Innsatte i fengsel med høyt sikkerhetsnivå må ikke tillates å gå fritt omkring i fengselets bygninger eller områder for øvrig.»
A sculpture park in Oslo.
“Løping, det var det eneste som på en måte skapte kontinuitet i min tilværelse. Her løp jeg da i ring, rundt i ring. Her hadde jeg da i fantasien mine turer gjennom Frognerparken, og det var oppe i hodet på meg.”
In Norway, prisoners serving a sentence (not remand prisoners) are obliged to take part in work, education or other activities (Regulations to the Execution of Sentences Act § 1–4 cf. § 3–12.
“Det vil jo være en overdrivelse å si at dette var noe som jeg gikk til med lyst, men når jeg hadde vært igjennom det, da hadde jeg fått akkurat den lille balansen jeg trengte for å ta noen nye timer og en ny dag.”
“Normalitetsprinsippet innebærer at tilværelsen under straffegjennomføringen så langt som mulig skal være lik tilværelsen ellers i samfunnet.”
“Sport og andre fritidsaktiviteter inngår som selvsagte elementer i manges hverdag, og antas å være positive for den fysiske og psykiske helsen, samt øke det generelle velværet. Aktivitetene kan dermed bidra til å gjøre straffen mindre tyngende. Siden helsen generelt er dårligere hos domfelte enn ellers i samfunnet, vil fritidsaktiviteter trolig også kunne gi effekt på sikt. Det er et mål at løslatte ikke bare skal ha arbeid eller skole å gå til, men også ha en meningsfylt fritid – som igjen antas å kunne bidra til lavere tilbakefall (samfunnsvern).”
Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, Recommendation
“Her rir Nokas-raneren i luftegården.”
“Jeg setter stor pris på å få være sammen med hester, særlig fordi min kontakt med andre fanger er utrolig begrenset.”
“Vi som vet hva det innebærer å bli frarøvet friheten, vi vet at det ikke er «bra» å bo i fengsel selv om du får besøk av en hest.”
(Zerocalcare, 2011)
This text addresses the city/prison relationship between Rebibbia Prison and Rome, with specific emphasis on urban aspects and general urban-planning tools. The discussion is limited to the present as it may even be more interesting than planning in Rome in the first decade of this century. The paper describes the content and objectives of the urban-planning tools, highlighting the prison/city relationship and factors of inclusion and exclusion present in the tools themselves. Some
There are currently two prisons in the city of Rome: Regina Coeli and Rebibbia. The historical prison is Regina Coeli. This is located in the Trastevere neighbourhood within a former convent that was built in 1654 and adapted for use as a prison between 1881 and 1902. Over time, the original prison centre was expanded with an adjacent structure for the women’s prison known as “Le Mantellate”, and a detached structure was built in Via Tasso during the Fascist period to house political prisoners. The Rebibbia Prison, which was built more recently, is instead located in a peripheral area of the city between Via Tiburtina and Via Nometana. Construction began at the end of the 1930s and was completed in its current state in the 1960-1970s.
Rome’s Rebibbia Prison is one of the four penitentiary institutes constituting the so-called Rebibbia Prison and Correctional Facility. Known as the Penal House until 1975, the prison houses different types of inmates, such as common prisoners incarcerated to serve a definitive sentence and mentally disabled inmates.
The institute is substantially rectangular and constructed in a panoptic star system where all detention wings can be observed from the centre. Each wing is divided into two sections. Of the total of six sections, four are designated for medium-security housing of common inmates and one houses inmates admitted to the external work program. The design of the current complex dates to 1960. Work was begun in 1965 and the institute was opened in 1971. The institute is composed of 351 single rooms and 319 shared rooms on a surface area of 27 ha and a building volume of 354,000 m3. The common spaces and structures include 2 sportsfields, 2 gyms, 12 classrooms, 2 libraries, 3 prayer rooms, 1 laboratory, and 3 shops. Activities carried out within the prison are dedicated to instruction (elementary and middle school, language courses, high school, and university centres), professional training, work, cultural activities (theatres, philosophical practices, cinema therapy, archaeobotany, religious courses, etc.), and sports (football, tennis, volleyball, weightlifting, etc.). The theatre activities are of particular interest. Since 2000, the “La Ribalta” Enrico Maria Salerno Study Centre hosts initiatives favouring the spread of theatre at the prison, creating training laboratories and specialization courses in theatre professions, with numerous shows that have been attended by more than 32,000 external spectators (60% are high school and university students). The laboratory ends each year with a show developed within the institute for outside audiences, including the actors’ families. For the last four years, the show has also been presented outside the prison in some of the most important theatres in Rome (the Quirino and Argentina Theatres). Actors in the High-Security Theatre Laboratory starred in the film “Caeser Must Die”, by the Taviani brothers, which was filmed entirely within the prison and which won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2012.
The institute was named after Cardinal Scipione Rebiba, the owner of vast lands, which today make up the Ponte Mammoloquarter where the prison is located; the neighbourhood owes its name to Ponte Mammolo, the bridge over the Aniene River. The origins of the name (in use since 1388) are the source of much speculation. On the one hand, some claim that it refers to the ancient Roman name Pons Mammeus or Pons Mammi, attributed to Giulia Mamea, the mother of Alessandro Severo, who supported its restoration. On the other hand, some claim the name derives from a contraction of
The pre-existing archaeological history is therefore surrounded by various historical events
As mentioned above, the Rebibbia Prison is located in the Ponte Mammolo neighbourhood, also known as the Rebibbia neighbourhood due to the presence of the tower with the same name. The neighbourhood dates from the end of the 1920s and over time, development has grown up around the penitentiary building, whose construction began in 1938. From the beginning, the original prison centre looked like an area that had arisen spontaneously, where numerous industrial factories were gradually created. Its proximity to the centre of the city and the Roma Tiburtina railroad stop, as well as the low cost of buildable land, favoured the development of the zone itself. The first growth of the neighbourhood affected the area surrounding Via Tiburtina, where the Church of the Sacro Cuore was built in 1936.
Following Via Bartolo Longo, which accesses the Rebibbia Prison, the Aguzzano Regional Park can be accessed by continuing on Via Paternò di Sessa. This park is a green “border” lung in the neighbourhood and an element connecting the surrounding urban areas that gravitate towards Via Nomentana. The ancient Rebibbia Tower, the ecological island with its artificial lake, and the cultural centre complete the pre-existing framework and the neighbourhood facilities, together with the last station on the northern leg of Rome’s B Metro Line—Rebibbia—situated on Via Tiburtina.
As mentioned above, the quarter is composed of different urban fabrics, both planned and spontaneous, that grew up around the focal point of the Rebibbia Prison. The urban fabric and abusive building—small in dimension and scale—can be seen, along with inexpensive state buildings with their typical building/urban characteristics, the planned city built by private investors and cooperatives in the typical Roman style, and the industrial, artisan, and commercial city which is partially disused, located in some large buildings on Via Tiburtina. (
The juxtaposition of different forms and settlements is immediately apparent from a quick, birds-eye view. Chronologically, they date to the end of the Second World War, except for the original unauthorized centre. However, they create not a homogeneous, complete, compact fabric but rather an area characterized by fragmentation in which architectural, completed, self-referential episodes are more evident than an overall urban design, i.e., the result of precise strategies and a shared vision. This is an urban area
Perhaps unfortunately, the prison constitutes an “unwanted” centrality in the current structure of the quarter for both its form and its size. Its function certainly relates not to the quarter, but to the urban metropolis, even though its presence characterizes and connotes the entire quarter, both dividing it physically/spatially and uniting it through a series of tertiary activities that go beyond its walls to create a direct connection between
In 2003 and 2008, respectively, the City of Rome adopted and approved the new Regulatory Plan, thereby concluding a course of planning that began with the
The main founding elements of the new tool are: Overcoming the concept of “historical centre” and assuming the concept of “historical city”
Consolidated city, restoration city, diffuse centralities: these are, in effect, the keywords deduced from the plan to clarify provisions for the Ponte Mammolo quarter and the areas surrounding the Rebibbia Prison. One particular aspect is the provision of an urban centrality at Ponte Mammolo to be planned with the function of public direction.
With specific regard to the prison, the plan is limited to classifying it as an “urban-level public service” without addressing the relationship with the surrounding urban environment, which is where the expected interventions within the fabrics of the consolidated and restoration cities are focused. Particular emphasis is placed on interventions to renovate the existing settlements. The Aguzzano Park becomes a unique part of the system of protected areas of the Aniene River. It acts like glue between the individual built areas and also responds to inhabitants’ quantitative and qualitative need for green areas. In its role as urban glue, it defines the edges of the prison outside its walls. Public residential building present in the limiting areas of Rebibbia (both historical and not, such as the Fascist-era village of San Basilio and the Tiburtino III settlement) becomes, in some cases, the historical 1800s presence of the so-called “historical city” in the new plan, and provides the cultural memory of the 1800s in the complex programs that should activate the interventions of urban renewal. (
If the general regulatory plan is inevitably restricted to defining the prison structure as a public service on the “urban” level, excluding at least apparently a direct dialogue between the prison and the surrounding urban space, the social regulatory plan (SRP) re-establishes this relationship. The SRP represents the uniting design of the urban welfare system, a framework/device for the social policies of the city. It proposes to simultaneously guarantee the global nature of the citizen dimension (the integrated system of services and social interventions in the city of Rome) and the specifics of local needs (the zoning plans of the individual municipalities) in its decentralized, interdependent organizations. In this way, both the metropolitan identity of citizen social policies and the planning and management autonomy of the municipalities are recognized.
In reference to the SRP and the municipality containing the Rebibbia Prison in particular, some actions and strategic choices have been identified to establish a connection between neighbourhood and prison. The link is recognized as a “unique peculiarity with respect to other Roman municipalities…whose ‘guests’, always and aside from their official residence, are considered to all effects and purposes as citizens of the 5th Municipality. An element that makes the presence in the municipal territory of the Rebibbia Prison even more particular is the presence … of the Rebibbia Women’s Prison, where there is also a nursery section that houses mothers with children under the age of three. For more than a decade, the children have joined and regularly attended the city nursery schools around the penitentiary institute, despite their official residence or the time of year in which the mothers are incarcerated” (5th Municipality SRP).
With regard to the historical relationship between the municipal services and the Rebibbia correctional facilities, some strong and weak points underlined in the SRP should be highlighted. Strong points include “the existence of a network of cooperatives between inmates that is well integrated with the services and the territory; the custom of cultural activities carried out within the prison by the territorial organizations”. Weak points include “the seriousness of the women’s condition in prison, especially for foreigners and itinerants; the fragility and short length of support processes upon release; the return of prejudice in wide areas of the territory, which is also reinforced by the debate on pardons and the identification between inmates and foreigners; and the still insufficient availability of resources, even from credit systems, aimed at supporting the creation of business between male and female inmates”. (SRP)
The development process for the above-mentioned actions, and therefore with regard to inclusion, is supported on various levels by several national and regional laws that establish the “possibility of using 10% of the contracts of a public entity for the direct commitment of supply and service contracts to social cooperatives or non-profit organizations. In establishing this opportunity, the legislature is clearly charged with guaranteeing a protected insertion in the public market that allows non-profit structures and those with specific social scopes to be directly included in the production system, in order to guarantee work placement and training for ‘weak’ subjects. The 5th Municipality has often made use of these opportunities, also contributing directly to the birth of social cooperatives within the prison system (the largest penitentiary complex in Europe is located in Italy) and supporting them through the assignment of sites and small contracts. In return, they have received not only good results with the work reinsertion plan, but also the ‘free’ supply of small services and the insertion of people in training internships or socially useful activities. With the occasion offered by the SRP, therefore, it is appropriate to define a certain, transparent framework of rules on the local level that allows the most effective use of these standards, combining the need for local development with inclusion policies” (5th Municipality SRP).
On the local municipal scale, the SRP organizes the main inspirations and larger objectives of the prison plan, which was endowed by the administration at the beginning of the 2000s and substantially represents the point of contact between the latter and the general regulatory plan. This is a strategic, planning, and management tool that really establishes the true contact between prison and city through a series of actions that relate the prison structure and its inhabitants to the quarter, the city, service-sector associations, and its inhabitants.
Returning to the prison plan, it is worth mentioning the beginning of the document: “The prison pertains to the city with all its contrasts, needs, and changes related to our time and is the place where suffering and social contradictions are the most visible, acute, and concentrated. It currently represents a true emergency in which, beyond their skills, each institution is called to intervene with renewed, incisive dedication. It seems urgent that the framework of guaranteeing inmates’ and prison workers’ rights be reinforced and redefined in light of new social processes to guarantee greater security for citizens with the concrete recovery of deviant subjects, as experience and data show” (Rome Prison Plan, 2003).
These few lines exemplify the need and desire of the tool to redesign the inter- and extramural intervention to clarify and connect interventions partially disconnected from a collective vision, pursuing common strategies and goals. In many cases, the suggested interventions randomly stretch over 360°, touching on education, professional and cultural training, mental support, and accommodation in day centres.
In light of this, the plan’s objectives can be summarized as follows: overcoming the sectoral view and fragmentation of interventions made under various headings and on different levels; complementarity and continuity of interventions with a systemic character; the plan as a point of reference for the prison population and penitentiary operators; optimization of resources and funds destined and/or for use in activities to recover and reinsert the prison population; implementation and construction where there is no collaborative rapport between territorial social services and those of the Ministry of Justice; realizing all opportunities so inmates’ rights are guaranteed; health, education and work, equal opportunities, educational and cultural training, minimum defence; primary access to the network of social protection and work insertion services, medical care, and healthcare performance; centrality of the person and family not only as subjects for whom resources are destined, but as a resource and opportunity for community, prevention and reduction of the social, cultural, and economic causes at the base of “deviance”; flexible interventions and personalized projects in a range of different opportunities, homogeneity processes on quality criteria for accreditation of service-sectors structures that operate in the penitentiary field; and homogeneity procedures on criteria of transparency, quality, and effective social reinsertion in the implementation of calls for the entrustment of prison activities.
The tool brings together different proposals, which should then be realized by the competent departments and, through agreement protocols, even by other institutions that variously collect useful skills and resources. The plan contains programs for intervention within and outside penal institutions in order to improve prison life; offers equal opportunities for the social insertion of inmates and former inmates avoiding the spread of energy and resources; presents proposals, and develops a line of conduct and careful planning in which the intervention for the prison is registered. From a legislative point of view, the plan is based on the regulation related to the functions of local entities, in particular, “with Law 328/2000, Law 229/99 ‘Rationalization of the National Health System’, and Art. 5 of the same law ‘Reordering of Penitentiary Medicine’. These acts establish the planning and realization of an integrated system of services and social interventions with the participation of all public and private subjects, citizens, and users present in the local community. They also assign communities authority in planning, design, and creating a system of local network services, indicating priorities, supplying services and assistance, accreditation, surveillance services and residential and semi-residential structures, and defining priorities” (Citizen Prison Plan, 2003).
In what is described above, a relatively clear framework is established regarding the relationship between the Rebibbia Prison, the urban environment in which it is located, and the related urban planning tools.
If from the physical/spatial point of view there seems to be exclusion with respect to the quarter, from the non-material point of view, memory, and the collective imagination, the prison is an important centralizing and connective element in which integration and inclusion are realized through the work of the many service-sector associations operating there. The inevitable physical closure of the structure to the city, its oversized scale with respect to the urban context, its well-recognized form that immediately recalls specialized building and a completed, self-referential architectural period is voluntarily detached from the action and the work of service-sector associations. With regard to what is established in the SRP and the Rome prison plan, these aspects play a role in connecting the prison and city, a job in a perspective of reinsertion and training/cultural activities that are found outside the prison walls. The film “Caesar Must Die” is only the most striking and most recent example, as demonstrated by the list of activities carried out and, taken to the city, described in the initial part of this text.
Beyond an interpretation of the urban form and urban-planning tools, two well-known points mark a connection between the prison, the quarter, the city, and the cultural/artistic world. The writer Edoardo Albinati and the cartoonist Zerocalcare clearly define
In contrast, the Italian cartoonist Zerocalcare
Finally, it is worth briefly mentioning the prison/city/political life integration of Rebibbia. The last National Conference of the Italian Radicals
Tradition says that Hannibal camped here during his invasion of Rome. As well, this is where the encounter between Henry IV and Pope Paschal II took place, in full “battle for the investiture” between the Papacy and Empire. Moreover, twenty years later, it saw the historical passage of Pope Innocent III on his return from France. Well fortified, the ancient Ponte Mammolo enjoyed a law enacted in 1363, the
The
This allowed the old concept of “historical centre”, related to the oldest part of the urban centre, to be overcome in favour of the “historical city”, which comprises a wider view spread over the territory (from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance to the 1800s).
The areas of strategic planning synthesize the result of research into a planning tool that can recall a coherent framework of urban realities pertaining to analytical and regulatory categories. The categories are different but connected by structural relational nodes in reference to the “double system” of values and functions.
Edoardo Albinati, a writer and translator, won the Strega Prize, the most important Italian literary prize, in 2016 for his latest book
Zerocalcare is the pseudonym of cartoonist Michele Rech. He was born in 1983 and has published several very successful graphic novels with Bao Publishing, including
Non-violent transnational and trans-party radical group.
The Italian government recently released its new prison plan, which establishes the dismantling of some historical prisons situated in large Italian cities in favour of building new structures in more decentralized areas. In the case of Rome, the plan refers to the Regina Coeli Prison.
This article discusses the topic of the ‘architecture’ of the prison in the Italian context. It argues the Italian context data and it deals with issues related to prison’s architectural typology evolution, the needs and performance approach and examples of good practices. The prison lacks architecture in Italy. What is the best design approach and the methodology right? The chapter contends that it’s necessary to consider the prison as architecture for life linked with urban life and the design can start from needs of users. The design can promote an environment that respect human dignity, sense of belonging and integration with the neighborhood and wider community. Furthermore, the design can promote and encourage a specific use of space, can promote a good perception of the space and might influence on user’s behavior. Overall, the chapter offers design considerations and examples that contribute to open an interdisciplinary debate, to create in the prison a sense of place, a living space and a multicultural atmosphere.
Italy’s prison-building situation has been the subject of debate in the field of architecture, its vicissitudes linked to the country’s contingent political situation. This was especially the case in the 1970s and until the late 1980s, with the issuance of the Regulation on “Rules governing the penitentiary system and the measures involving deprivation of or limits upon liberty” and, in 2001, the holding of a competition of ideas for developing a medium-security prison prototype with a capacity of 200 prisoners. On the national level over the years, the Prison Plan was issued in 2013, following the decision by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (2013), which condemned the Italian prison system for breaching article 3 of the European Convention – the prohibition against inhuman and degrading treatment caused by overcrowded prison facilities. The Prison Plan was supposed to initiate a series of interventions to improve the prison situation in terms both of overcrowding and of detention models aimed at bringing about real opportunities for recovery. Currently, the Italian prison system is still experiencing a crisis situation, in terms of overcrowding and dilapidated buildings, causing great discomfort in people’s lives.
The topic of prisons from the architectural standpoint has been examined in depth only by a handful of scholars. This is unlike what took place over time for healthcare construction, an area that has many points of contact with prison building, as they are “total institutions.” Imprisonment and illness are themes that some societies have always culturally rejected by removing the buildings from cities, considering them as “others” with respect to the established fabric, and reinforcing the idea of being alien to the lives of “others.” Today, hospital building is the constant focus of design and research experimentation to guarantee the construction’s quality and the users’ well-being. This is because cultural attitudes towards illness and where it is treated have changed: the hospital, traditionally understood as a place of diagnosis and treatment, is slowly transforming into a physical environment that promotes health and “a health promoting hospital does not only provide high quality comprehensive medical and nursing services, but also develops a corporate identity that embraces the aims of health promotion, develops a health promoting organizational structure and culture, including active, participatory roles for patients and all members of staff, develops itself into a health promoting physical environment and actively cooperates with its community” (WHO,
A “useful prison is one of respect for people and for human dignity,… it is the prison that has not sprouted up on the territory, but that enriches it with its presence…; it is the prison of reconsideration and of individual and collective responsibility. It is the prison that teaches you a job… it is the prison that considers each person, because he or she is a person, as a resource and investment.” (Sbriglia E., in De’ Rossi D.A. et al.
As Don Luigi Ciotti pointed out, reality is quite different: “Prison is a sort of modern-day quarantine station, called upon to contain segments of cultural and material poverty, of disadvantage and of illness”. It is thus necessary “not to lock up in order to remove, but to be open to redesigning a new corrections model that leaves room for moments of socializing, that relaunches sound, effective paths of re-education and reintegration into society.”
The cultural and social value given to the prison has a direct impact on the issue of its spatial configuration, its design.
The underlying question that merits investigation is why, then, over the years, prison building has been relegated to the theme of construction and not “architecture,” and, moreover, whether the issue might not be better dealt with by overturning the concept with an oxymoron: prison not as a place of segregation, but as a place of life, albeit in a confined space, with all that this means – that is to say above all as a place for living, for work, rehabilitation, and socialization. Italy’s own Constitution states that “Punishments may not be inhuman and shall aim at re-educating the convicted. Death penalty is prohibited’ (Italian Constitution, art. 27). It is precisely this term – “inhuman” – that should be discussed from the standpoint of architecture: to what extent can built space be inhuman? What sets the construction of a “human space” apart from an “inhuman” one? And what, today, is the possible organizational approach functional to the topic of prison architecture?
Before examining the architectural and functional questions, an analysis of terminology must be provided, along with a description of the state of affairs in the Italian situation in numerical terms, with the caveat that the data are always highly debated and continuously evolving.
The Italian word for prison, “
Italy has 193 prisons (Department of Penitentiary Administration of the Ministry of Justice, 31 May 2016), of which 141 are
The institutions’ regulation capacity in terms of prisoners that can be housed, as indicated by the documents of the Ministry of Justice’s Department of Penitentiary Administration, “is calculated with respect to the standard of 9 m2 per prisoner plus 5 m2 for other persons – the same standard for which habitability is granted for homes in Italy.” There is lively debate about this standard, since in practical terms not only is it not met in Italian prisons, but there is no certain literature on the subject. In fact, in its sentences, the European Court of Human Rights refers to the parameters identified by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, which establishes an individual cell size of 7 m2. This underscores the difficulty of precisely establishing the measurement of the personal space that must be granted to each prisoner based on the provisions of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and shows the lack, even internationally, of certain rules of use for defining the minimum requirements that detention centres must meet. Indeed, in their various decisions, the Strasbourg judges have found that the minimum living space to be ensured for each prisoner must be determined on the basis of a variety of factors, such as the duration of deprivation of personal freedom, the possibility to access outdoor walking, and the prisoner’s mental and physical conditions (Ministry of Justice, circular of 2008).
In Italy, analysis of the data on regulation capacity shows that the prevailing size of penitentiaries is in the segment between 399 and 199 (58%, 112 institutions), with 6 institutions (3%) having a capacity exceeding 1,000 units
The facilities’ regulation capacity is 49,697, thus coming up 4,176 beds short; this figure provides the overcrowding index: calculated on the number of inmates with respect to regulation capacity, overcrowding stands at 108%, with imaginable consequences in terms of quality of life. Overcrowding is to be considered inhuman and degrading treatment, which causes additional suffering on top of that induced by detention. Therefore, while Italian law recommends the standard of 9 m2 per prisoners, today there are prisoners living in less than 3 m2, and there are situations in which prisoners in the same cell cannot speak the same language.
The prison population as a whole has a very small number of women, equal to approximately 4%, and a considerable number of foreign nationals, equalling 34%. Forty-one women have children staying with them: 20 are Italians with 22 children staying with them, and 21 are foreign nationals with 22 children with them, for a total of 44 children living in penitentiaries. The prison population counts 18,085 foreign nationals, 54% of whom are from two countries in the Maghreb (Morocco and Tunisia, accounting for 28%) and from two European countries (Romania and Albania, 29%). In Italy’s prisons, not counting the population residing in the
To comprehend the prisoners’ life, a significant datum is the number of those engaged in working activities, which stands at around 28% (out of 54,072 as of 30 June 2016, Department of Penitentiary Administration of the Ministry of Justice): the greatest number are engaged in works connected with the sectors of farming, food service, carpentry, assembly of components, laundry, and tailoring.
Starting from this framework, we analyze below what might be the role of design and of a proper approach to the design of prison building, by raising it to the level of architecture, covering its typological evolution, and analyzing what may be defined as best practices in the Italian context. The common thread linking all the paragraphs is the conviction, responding to the questions initially posed, that a proper approach to prison design can promote environments that respect human dignity, a sense of belonging and integration with the neighbourhood and wider community. Furthermore, design can promote and encourage a specific use and good perception of the space, and might have an effect on all users’ behaviour.
Architecture, as Renzo Piano pointed out in 1998 in his speech for the Pritzker Prize, is a service, in the most literal sense of the term. It has to produce a useful thing. The project as the act of “throwing something out,” as denoted by its etymology in the Latin
How much of the above, this attention to the design’s acceptation, may be held as valid for Italian prison building? Is it possible to trace an evolution of the type of prison in Italy, and therefore a maturing and an architectural awareness linked to the specific theme?
A research effort conducted within the Italian Penitentiary Administration in 1997, with the aim of gaining understanding of prison building holdings, developed a register of prison types, considering 219 institutions (Scarcella L.
The 25% of prisons (55 prison complexes) were not designed as prisons, but adapted for the purpose. They are former monasteries, mansions or castles, heritage buildings whose typology was prevalently with a courtyard, and whose trend is now towards closure and renovation. These types may be dated prior to 1890; the
From 1890 on, buildings and complexes designed as prisons began to be built.
Twenty-two prison complexes, or 10%, are of a type defined as simple or multiple radial, due to the arrangement of the detention pavilions around a central distribution body; these were built in the period leading up to 1890, mostly in urban settings. Examples are San Vittore in Milan (1892) and Regina Coeli in Rome (1882), the latter built with the prisoners’ own labour.
Twenty-two prison complexes, or 13%, are of the telegraph pole building type, made into the mid-1940s in accordance with the dictates of the first (1889) and second prison reform (1932)
Sixty-five prison complexes, or 26%, are of a kind defined as a development of the telegraph pole typology; the type is losing its compactness, with the separation of buildings constructed between 1949 and 1977. Examples of this are Foggia Prison (1963), Nuoro Prison (1953-64) designed by the architects M. Ridolfi and W. Frankl, Rebibbia Prison (1975) designed by the architect S. Lenci, and Sollicciano Prison, Florence (1977) – architects: A. Mariotti, G. Campani, P. Inghirami, I. Castore, P. Rizzi, and E. Camici. This period was a time of lively research and debate on the issue of prison building, and in general on the various types of construction; the architects themselves grappled with this design issue. These were the years of the first architect’s manual (1953) collecting all the dimensional standards and typologies for such different types of building such as schools, hospitals and housing complexes; organizational, functional, and compositional reflections on residential building attempted to find application in prison construction. These were also the years of the 1975 prison reform
Twenty-eight prison complexes, or 13%, are defined as compact in type, with a single building. These are chiefly maximum security prisons built after the 1980s, like Palmi Prison (1989) for example.
Eight prison complexes, or 4%, returned to the telegraph pole typology after the 1990s, as was the case with Vibo Valentia Prison (1990), marking a regression in the search for design solutions capable of responding to the new needs and demands affirmed over time (
The typological evolution thus follows that of the prison reforms, and mirrors the country’s social culture and political choices at a given moment in history. It is also true that few architects have grappled with prison architecture over time, since prison design was mostly relegated to mere technicalism exercised by internal technical offices. For these reasons, some scholars maintain that we cannot speak of prison architecture, and there are several reasons for this: there is no easy access to prison projects, out of security concerns, unlike what occurs in other countries; there is no significant body of literature on prison building; the topic is not taught at Architecture and Engineering schools, hence there is a lack of education and academic research; and lastly, there is no debate on this topic among architects and urban planners, and the project is therefore usually carried out by technicians (Marcetti C.,
As may be observed from what was stated above on the typological evolution, prison building was at the centre of design experimentation interest mainly in the postwar years until the second half of the 1970s. Without a doubt, the topic of prisons is a difficult one for architects, who find themselves having to respect rigid constraints of organization, space, and function dictated by the laws of the moment, which discourage an attempt at design experimentation.
As the architect Sergio Lenci wrote, “When the problem of the prison comes to the architect, many scenarios that may qualify the results are already completed…, and it is moreover no easy matter to determine the type and quality of the spaces if the definitions of the requirements that the convict’s life might have are unclear, as a consequence of the rights that must be accorded to the convict” (
Just a few illustrious figures in Italian architecture have grappled with prison design, reflecting the cultural and political trends of the era while at the same time offering reflection on the issue. In the 1950s, Mario Ridolfi, in collaboration with Wolfang Frankl, designed the Nuoro and Cosenza prisons, dealing with the issue of the prison in continuity with traditional residential typologies. His contribution concentrated more on integration into the context, composition and architectural language, materials, and details. Certain design solutions used in residential building have been re-proposed in prisons, such as for example the detail of the diagonally-set window, which offers the possibility of looking out into the distance and guaranteeing greater privacy (Pirazzoli N.,
The architect Sergio Lenci worked in the sector of prison design until the mid-1970s, during the period prior to the 1975 prison reform. Anticipating certain aspects of the reform, he contributed and provided significant impetus towards driving prison architecture to seek a design guided by principles of humanization, and by criteria of functional spaces and architectural expressiveness. Lenci designed the
In the design of the
In 1974, at the height of the pre-prison-reform debate, the competition for Florence’s Solliciano prison was held. The history of this design, won by the group of Florentine architects, bears witness to how Italy’s social and political events profoundly influenced the work. The design and its development clashed with the new needs imposed by terrorism and by the prison emergency, and thus the initial design, which had interesting innovative content, was overturned during construction, thereby distorting its very nature. The design’s interesting innovative content may be summed up as follows: the building’s floor plan, inspired by the Florentine lily, schematized this flower structure with semicircular pavilions and connecting corridors, and elaborated the telegraph pole scheme that had been deemed the most suitable for generating a corridor capable of fostering relationships of exchange between the various activities carried out inside; the buildings in the shape of convex semicircles oriented towards the city, set up as dormitories, were arranged to delimit an equipped interior space; their entire complex was organized in paths, squares, sports facilities, and green areas; there were no metal bars or grilles on the cell windows (Ministry of Justice). Construction work ended in 1982 and delivery took place the following year.
Looking to the history of these designs, we note that there is a wholly Italian anomaly between design times and construction times, and therefore the times needed to bring the project online: the passage of time between the two is quite long, and this generates – and not only in prison construction – problems linked to the buildings’ actual ability to respond to the new needs imposed as the years go by.
It may be stated that the design for the Sollicciano prison complex marks the end of design experimentation, and in the years following the approval of prison reform in the second half of the 1980s for reasons connected with the emergency and terrorism, prison design was reduced to mere technicalism. In fact, “the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Public Works, through the General Directorates of Prevention and Detention Institutions and of State Construction, produced a typical design for all new constructions. The requirement of design quality gave way to other characteristics, such as having buildings be as compact as possible, and drastically reducing distances, with no further reflection on reasons, spaces, and architectural forms. The translation of the typical project into a framework, cast in stone, of the design/production cycle, in which any critical independence disappears, was done by a small group of companies and designers. With these premises, a large quantity of serial, decontextualized prison complexes was produced and dropped into the landscape” (Marcetti C.,
To understand how the frame of reference changed after the second half of the 1980s, as the terrorism emergency declined in Italy, it is necessary to take a step back in time and cite the content and main guidelines emerging from a research effort performed at the international level in 1970 by the United Nations Social Defence Research Institute, titled “Prison Architecture” (
The most significant guidelines emerging from research may be outlined as follows: “The appropriateness of differentiating institutions according to the type of prisoners; the realization of different levels of security in a single institution, as well as a differentiation of living conditions (including architectural forms) according to the progress or regression of prisoners; the appropriateness of programmes for different categories of prisoners, such as women, young adults, drug addicts and long term prisoners. For pre-trial detention, the principal recommendation was to construct a special institution,… Concerning the size of prisons…, the minimum criterion was specified as a capacity of between 100 and 300 prisoners,….
The location of penal institutions was considered from different and contrasting points of view. Nearness to the urban centre was considered positive for allowing the staff a normal social life,…, and offering the prisoners easier contact with their families, with work opportunity in extra-mural industries, and with the opportunities for various types of professional counselling. Distance from the urban centres was on the other hand considered advantageous because of the relative cheapness of land and the easier surveillance of prisoners…. The twin tendencies to install prison industries and work-shops both inside and outside prisons.., in either case…, conditions such as
ventilation, light and industrial safety must be equal to those prevailing in the free-labour market. … Common free time activities …, that areas dedicated to these functions should be well suited for…; it was desirable to have playing fields, swimming pools,.., theatre, concerts, cinema. In addition to areas for common activities, rooms for individual activities, or being by oneself, were advocated…, Single cells are the best rooming arrangement… On the size of the cell,…, the guiding principle must be referred to the standard of civil architecture. The standard … for visitor’s facilities was to make them as pleasant as possible in order to produce a genuinely relaxing atmosphere,… Less use of high walls for perimeter defense is suggested. A substitute could be a broad green belt around the institution equipped with means of surveillance such as lookout towers… The windows should be of the same size as in normal residences of the area, and as far as possible other techniques of closure should be substituted for the traditional bars.”(Di Gennaro G.; Lenci S.,
To these guidelines, others of equal interest were added, which, when systematically subdivided by key word, provide an overall and still quite current picture. For the purposes of this discussion, for each key word, the main findings with direct impact on prison design are reported.
“Identity. Since correctional objectives involve interaction with community resources and volunteer workers, facility construction should support this interaction and involvement… Facility design should indicate that elements of security and detention are secondary; they should not be permitted to dominate facility identity…; to reinforce integration of the facility into the community, facilities should fit into the external environment in which they are set. Effective facility design can ease communication and the development of inter-personal relationships.
Scale. Large scale facilities convey an atmosphere of anonymity to the individual client, and tend to engender in him feelings of powerless, meaninglessness, isolation, and embitterment…; large, isolated facilities strongly reinforce the image of rejection of the offender by society, contemporary programme objectives of resocialization and reintegration of clients into the community are thwarted…Size less than 300 is recommended….Individual room occupancy is considered a basic requirement…. Dining is preferable in decentralized smaller group settings,… Long corridors (in excess of 15-20 m in large facilities, or 10 m in smaller settings) should be avoided unless relief is
provided in some manner. In order to facilitate the integration of corrective programmes into the community settings…, an important contribution will be made when the facility design bears a harmonious relationship to its surroundings…It should be remembered that the considerations of scale relate not only to interior spaces but also to the development and definition of exterior spaces.
Institutional size. An ideal residential size will be in the area of 100-125 residents.
Conceptual design. The facility should be seen as a device which tends to structure human activities and as an environment which can provide and develop individual decision-making on the part of its residents….Visiting, counselling, legal assistance, volunteer programmes, professional services and many other activities have special importance for the conceptual design of the facility.
Individual occupancy. The basic standards in the planning and design of the closed institution should be the provision of single-occupancy sleeping rooms…together with the provision of a well-rounded activity programme…; a single room is to provide sleeping accommodation and an area of privacy for its residents for approximately eight hours a day…. the room should contain a single bed…Also provided should be adequate shelving, recognizing that residents will accumulate various articles which have the purpose of furthering their self-expression. The opportunity should also be available in the individual room for reading and writing. A small desk area with a movable chair or seat, together with sufficient lighting… A minimum amount of storage area provided to the individual resident should be included … clothing storage, lockable drawer, and closet space…. All rooms should be provided with direct outside exposure for natural light and view… The single occupancy room should also be viewed as an important environmental component which supports the correctional efforts.
Flexibility. It is desirable so that programmes may be adapted to changing needs. Principle among the considerations affecting future flexibility is the determination of materials and methods of construction…Use of construction systems which have demountable features. Planning features may include clear floor and ceiling construction with infill of partition subdivisions…Also, pre-manufactured systems or systems of components offer features … suitable … to respond to future change. Several approaches are available to achieve the adaptability to future changes in facility characteristics, role or size. One of these involves the construction of a central service core containing basic services, such as mechanical, fixed equipments, major utilities,…, and others surrounded by neutral programme modules…. Another approach calls for the planned obsolescence of the entire facility.
Control. The planning and the design of the correctional institution … must be approached as an integral part of its activity programming… The concept of zoning various functional units … with close staff supervision, further assists the planning effort which seeks to avoid redundancy in controls, excessive constructions cost, and the development of counterproductive physical environments … Another approach to security zoning involves the establishment of a mixed perimeter with an undulating security edge … The security edge is created by facility masses themselves rather than by construction for security purposes only. The imagery as well as the expenses for the traditional prison wall are thus avoided. Also provided with a mixed perimeter is the potential for definition of an exterior space “within” the facility environment. At the same time, the mix of ‘soft’ functions on the edge decreases the hostile character which the facility may otherwise present and ‘soft’ components become filters for interface with community programme volunteers, visitors, and other participants.
Guard Towers. (
Economics. Various new construction materials also add to the possibilities for attaining security and improving the treatment programme environment while at the same time reducing construction costs … Most interesting among these … is the development of new composite glass and plastic window materials which replace traditional steel bar grillage..
Staff housing. It will be noted that many feature the provision of staff housing in close proximity to the institution…On the one hand, it is recognized that the immediate proximity of the staff to the facility allows for their quick response in times of emergency… Another reason … is that such housing frequently constitutes a portion of staff payment and benefits … An approach to the housing of staff now gaining prominence is based upon the premise that corrections staff serve as an important link between the residents of the closed institutions and the outside community…
Climate. Local climate conditions in the particular country in which the facility is planned have importance … In amenable climates,…, opportunities are offered for exterior programme activity, and here interrelationships between interior space and exterior space take on a new significance. …In less amenable climates the consideration of climate for design is equally important. Consequently, various activity spaces such as sleeping rooms, living areas, group activity spaces and others, should be organized in the facility design to allow the maximum orientation to the warmth and light of the winter sun (D Moyer,
The authors of the research highlight a new conception of prison architecture aimed at reintegrating the prisoner into society, and therefore are more attentive to the relationship with the city, to the interaction with the community, and to the prisoner’s personal needs, while not neglecting the needs connected with the facilities’ security and control: an architecture, then, that communicates an identity of its own, in which aspects of security and control do not dominate.
As discussed above, the study influenced the design criteria of the late 1980s in Italy, and this period saw the enactment, in 1986, of the Gozzini Law (Law no. 663 of 10 October
The ministry circular of 1989, “Criteri per una moderna edilizia penitenziaria” (“Criteria for modern prison building”)
As to the requirements, the following are defined:
- Flexibility: design in order to allow for easy changes to the building over time, without altering the work’s ordinary arrangement
- Functionality: building typology in such a way as to limit the operating costs, especially with regard to the control staff
- Aesthetics: the colours of the environments.
With regard to the types of spaces, the circular’s guideline is to see that the prison offers the prisoner the possibility of being engaged in a variety of activities for most of the day – work, educational activities, and so on – outside the cell.
Spaces for this purpose are identified:
– Spaces for working, educational, recreational, activities, etc.
As to the technological aspects, the circular provides suggestions with regard to:
– Technologies and building materials: low cost, but attention to the quality of aesthetic perception, living comfort, internal and external flexibility
– Using industrialized building technologies instead of prefabricated technologies
– Restricting the use of prefabricated technologies solely to storage, laboratory and service spaces
– Using a mix of building technologies (prefabricated + traditional) for services and support housing.
– Using a mix of building technologies, thus making it possible to pare down costs and construction time
– Using traditional materials with human and affective values.(Burdese,
In 1998, 9 years after the aforementioned circular, the Department of Penitentiary Administration provided, in a circular, the framework of prison assets, underscoring the typological inadequacy and the general state of decay of a large part of prison buildings. The circular emphasized the need for investment in upgrading the buildings, and, with the objective of considering the work as a sub-set of the prison system, proposed a “new element” represented by a building – separate but within prison walls – for productive activity: a small factory employing prisoners. The 1989 circular posed the problem not only of new buildings, but of upgrading existing prisons – an issue still highly current today.
With regard to the topic of upgrading, one of the interventions of greatest significance for the participation process it activates, its values and the social message it bears is the “giardino degli incontri” (“the meeting garden”) in Florence’s Sollicciano prison, begun in 1985 and concluded in 2007.
The process and design was led by the architect Giovanni Michelucci, who held a highly critical position with regard to institutions and their architecture.
In a 1983 interview, a journalist asked Michelucci: “But how would you build a prison if you were asked?” His reply: “I wouldn’t build it. I would have it done by someone else. In this case, my cowardice would be up to here. Unless, that is, I were allowed to build a whole city” (interview by Francesco Colonna,
This statement makes perfectly clear Michelucci’s relationship with the issue of prison architecture and his approach to the
An essential passage was marked by the issuance in 2000 of the Regulation on the penitentiary system and on the measures involving deprivation of or limits upon liberty (Decree of the President of the Republic no. 230 of 30 June
In brief, the regulation stresses the following: the prison as a place of resocialization; efforts at resocialization should include security settings corresponding to the socialization levels of offenders, the involvement of prisoners in different activities, such as cooking and room cleaning, the involvement of prisoners in different working activities and at the level of constructing the building; it is necessary to apply all technologies in the electronic and energy fields.
Based on this regulation, in 2001 the penitentiary administration in Italy initiated a “call for ideas for the development of a prototype medium-security penitentiary institution with qualified treatment.” The competition asked the candidates for a penitentiary institution model accommodating 200 prisoners over an area of 80,000 m2, with modular and repeatable detention units for 60-70 prisoners; interpreting the new regulatory dictates, the model would permit qualified treatment for the prisoner from the standpoint of opportunities for education, employment, and professional training, cultural activities, recreation, and sports. All this was directed, on the one hand, towards improving the quality of life inside the institution, and on the other towards ensuring the performance of activities aimed at the prisoner’s recovery and reintegration into society, without neglecting the need to achieve the best possible economy in the employment of human resources in the operation phase and to improve and strengthen residential building and housing structures for personnel.
Twenty-two design groups answered the call, 4 of which garnered awards: two winners in a tie, and two honourable mentions
The competition brought no follow-up – not even publication of the catalogue of the show that was subsequently organized. But it did have the merit of making prison architecture a topic for discussion again, despite the very bitter criticism by some, foremost among whom was Burdese, who wrote that designers are not suitably equipped to grapple with this issue, and that the administration was imagining, outside itself, entirely non-existent spheres of competence (Vassella,
So we are back to technicalism, with the presentation by the Penitentiary Administration in 2009, at the first Salone della Giustizia trade show in Rimini, of a prototype modular penitentiary institution accommodating 200, 400, 600, and 800 prisoners. The prototype adopts a radiocentric scheme over a distribution hub, with an eye to flexibility and modularity, security and control, and affordable operation (De’ Rossi,
The idea of a prototype, serialized and undifferentiated, yet functional and efficient from the standpoint of operation and so on, is the negation of the relationship with the surrounding built-up fabric, and it would at the very least be necessary to investigate the procedures for bringing the “prototype” into dialogue with the context of reference into which it is inserted, so as to activate the dialogue that has been discussed, between society, the city, and the prison.
This begs the question: “Are we currently unable to open the issue of prisons to ‘architecture,’ relegating it to the mere technicalism of a handful of experts? And, given this will – because that is what it appears to be – why can’t, at the very least, forms of collaboration with scholars and technicians included to do studies and experiments on the subject be found?”
Prison design cannot and must not be relegated to the mere activity of the architect – an idea that is now obsolete – but to an interdisciplinary group that includes the participation of experts in various sectors, from the urban planner to the sociologist and so on, also with a view to participation with the end users when possible.
The approach to the topic of prison architecture must necessarily focus on the various categories of users, starting from identification, in the design process, of what the actual needs are, in compliance with the regulations in force – without losing sight of the fact that the prisoner is a person like everyone else. As pointed out a number of times, a prison’s design is the expression of the policy a country has towards detention and punishment and towards its laws, as well as its actual ability to enforce laws, and its political will to invest in this sector. When dealing with the design of a new building, an initial aspect is connected with its placement with respect to the surrounding context – a choice that determines the relationship not only between the prison and city, but the relationship that, depending on the case, prisoners may have with life outside prison. It is an important choice, that obviously cannot be made separately from a series of considerations connected to the project’s setting (topography, climate, etc.) and therefore to its environmental sustainability. The questions that must be posed prior to embarking on a prison design are those underlying any process: Who are the users? How many are they? What are their needs? What kind of activities are users allowed to do? What kind of spaces do users need? What kind of connection among spaces is useful? What are the pathways? What activities will be carried out outdoors or indoors? What is the ideal relationship between indoor and outdoor spaces? As regards the users, we may identify the different categories of prisoner in relation to: level of the punishment, gender (male/female), age (starting from babies), health status, psychological status; in addition to prisoners are other users, such as the director, prison officers, psychologists, criminologists, social workers, prison doctors, the multidisciplinary team for drug addicts, the service team for alcohol addiction, educators/teachers and vocational training workers, chaplains and other religious ministers, volunteers, general services staff, and visitors. In terms of spatial aggregation, three sectors may be identified, broken down into functional areas and environmental units (
It may be said that from the technical standpoint, the realization of a technically sound, quality project, with the aim of striking a better balance between overall construction cost, maintenance, and management, must at any rate comply with the indications of the regulations in force for other categories of buildings: reducing the use of non-renewable resources, maximum reuse of natural resources, high maintainability, improved energy efficiency, durability of materials and components, substitution of elements, technical and environmental compatibility of materials, easy monitoring of performance over time, safety and health.
From the human point of view, the process of arriving at the design, and the design itself, can promote environments that respect human dignity and the sense of belonging to and being integrated into the neighbourhood and the wider community. These aspects are highly important because the prison’s placement, and thus its design, its connotations of material and of sensory perception, can promote and encourage a specific use and good perception of the space, and might have an effect on the prisoners’ behaviour.
This papers offers a brief history of Italian prison “architecture” and the design considerations and examples that contribute towards initiating an interdisciplinary debate to stress how a connection with the context, a sense of place, a living space and a multicultural atmosphere may be created in the prison. It is necessary to keep in mind the article of the Constitution of the Italian Republic that focuses on two key concepts: human dignity and the rehabilitation of the prisoners. Today, the Italian situation is still far from achieving the Constitution’s dual objectives. The Italian problem is linked not only to the construction of new penitentiary buildings, but above all, as the data we have discussed show, to the upgrading of existing ones.
Many critical areas emerge from the analysis. Of the two chief ones, the first is the presence of a sound regulatory apparatus that is disregarded; in other words, there are laws, but the political will to seriously come to terms with them and to invest in this direction is lacking. The second critical area is the absence of “architecture” in prison design. I believe that research in this sector must be incentivized and brought forward in comparison with experiences outside national boundaries, in an interdisciplinary perspective, so as to activate a cultural debate on the issue of prisons that breaks through the wall of pure technicalism. It is thus necessary to counter the trend that sees prison prototyping as the only solution, and relaunch research and design for the prison as a place to promote the prisoner’s human respect, a place of rehabilitation for the persons experiencing it, and a place in a close relationship with the cultural, social, and physical setting it belongs to.
Writing about prisons, it is impossible for me to ignore the reality described by a famed Italian prisoner, Adriano Sofri, who spent 22 years behind bars: “Every time I say this is a comfortable prison, better than in the past, bystanders look at me with perplexity; then someone comes up to me, softly saying, ‘Jail is jail; it’s still jail’. Don’t forget: your windows have gratings, your doors are made of iron, and they make an iron noise; a jailer passes through every hour during the night, with heavy footsteps; he switches on the light and looks inside your cell; don’t forget that everyone screams; (…) don’t forget you are a prisoner” (translated by the author).
Cf. Orizzonti ristretti, glossary available at
For the purposes of calculation, 7 capacity categories were developed for the 193 institutes taken into consideration: more than 1,000 prisoners, accounting for 3% of institutions (in numerical terms, 6 institutions); 900–600: 4% (7 institutions); 599–400: 11% (22 institutions); 399–200: 30% (58 institutions); 199–100: 28% (54 institutions); 99–60: 8% (16 institutions); under 60 prisoners: 16 % (30 institutions).
Until 1931, penitentiary building was managed directly by the Administration, which, starting in 1865, had its own technical office, to which prisoners also belonged, as draughtsmen recruited from the Rome Penitentiary. After 1931, administration was transferred to the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Public Works was responsible for construction. The 1932 reform was launched with no specific funding for prison building, and the financing made available by the Ministry of Public Works was entirely insufficient to deal with the situation of penitentiary building assets (cf. Scarcella L.,1998).
Law no. 354 of 26 July 1975, “Rules governing the penitentiary system and the measures involving deprivation of or limits upon liberty,” launched the new overall reform of the institutions of penitentiary law, which was being discussed since the second postwar period.
The following group of scholars performed the research: Di Gennaro G., project director; Lenci S., technical director; Fairweather L., technical consultant; Vetere E., research officer; Cacciapuoti B., technical assistant; Eriksson T., Leroy C., and Moyer D. F., contributors; Leone U., executive officer; Simpson P., bibliographical assistant. The research analyzed the setting and architecture of 27 prisons located all over the world.
1989, Ministry Circular (?), “Criteria for a modern design of prison building.”
The two winners, in a tie, were: “La città ristretta,” studio Fagnoni&Associati; “Comb1,” studio Ap+st architettura. The two honorable mentions were: “Sicurezza e vivibilità,” Studio Delfini; “Fortes et firmi carceres construantur,” 1229, studio Planrch.
Is it possible to imagine a confined space where detainees can find a path of rehabilitation and re-education? Is it possible to imagine a confined space where the prison officers can live without being confined to themselves? These are the main questions that pushed the design team to accept this challenge, through a design contest. The article discusses a project prototype of a medium-security prison for the custody of 200 prisoners, that has been awarded the joint first prize in the competition of ideas organized by the Italian Ministry of Justice in 2001.
The project presented has been awarded the joint first prize in the competition of ideas organized by the Italian Ministry of Justice in 2001 for a “prototype of a medium-security prison for the custody of 200 detainees”.
In 2000, a new Penitential Regulation (Italian Presidential Decree, 30 June 2000 No 230: Regulations for the implementation of penitentiary systems and the measures designed to deprive or limit freedoms) was approved. It sought to bring Italian prisons in line with the rules of the United Nations and European conventions. It is a Regulation which gives voice and emphasis to alternatives in detention. The elements of penitential treatment are made explicit in the Regulation’s content; it is pointed out (Article 15) that it must resort “primarily to education, labour, religion, cultural, recreational and sports activities, facilitating appropriate contacts with the outside world and relationships with family. For the purpose of rehabilitation, except in cases where it is not possible, work must be assured for the convicted or the detained.” This project sought to solidify these principles: architecture which considers and builds the space surrounding the person.
The penitential facility is from its conception imagined as a city, or rather, a village. It takes into account all the recognized limits for a penitentiary, however, improving the dignity and life of detainees also formed part of the project. If seen as a community, then the contribution of each person is considered a necessary part. The areas allocated to work, outdoor activities, land (gardens), and sports are thus of central importance. Spaces that do not merely represent the exception of the usual one hour of out-of-cell time, but rather - along with the housing facilities - determine the overall design: the exception is then not to work, to almost exclusively stay locked in a cell, and not to take part in training activities or sports. A relationship with the outside world is also essential, both in overcoming the absolute separation – which often becomes refusal, removal of the very existence of the prison from the world “outside” - both in the articulation of the contact spaces and of the directly functional social contact within the structure.
The prison is designed as a sort of village, divided between empty and constructed spaces and by the functions which shape the activities. The project proposes an environment which establishes a link with its inhabitants and with the local society because it is multi-ethnic, mobile and lively. As in a village, life is regulated by the contribution that each individual provides to the community. It is therefore necessary within the village penitentiary to balance the complexity of the system with a working organization where each inhabitant may contribute to the operation and maintenance of the whole by carrying out activities for its development and maintenance, organization and management.
The first items of focus, as the vital heart of the building complex, were the minimum detention units, defined in the new Regulation by the term room. They are characterized by the presence of windows without screens and are equipped with toilets, showers and sinks, and an area with cooking facilities. The catering functions were organised with specific spaces intended for food preparation (kitchens for up to 200 people) and consumption, with a space suitable for the accommodation of a limited number of detainees. The Regulation provides a new and different quality of relations between prisoners and family members during the interview or meeting periods, modifying the current criteria and introducing the possibility of conducting these meetings outdoors and assigning specially designed areas for private family gatherings. The open spaces to be used for recreational activities, sports and cultural activities should preferably not be landlocked between buildings.
Further innovations concern the arrangement of professional and educational training on various levels, the establishment of a library service for detainees, the allocation of areas for intellectual, artistic or craft activities, spaces for various religions, as well as for conducting sports, recreational and cultural activities.
From the initiation of the project, the whole complex was considered to be a part of the territory in which it is located, constituting, with its security features and privacy, a kind of self-sufficient village equipped with its own cultural and social identity.
The solution proposes an aggregation typical of Italian cities: one where the complex of streets, buildings, public spaces and green areas is planned on a preconceived but also occasionally random grid; presenting a totality at once ordered and chaotic, but always on a human scale. The decision to consider the new prison model as a cluster of nuclei, buildings and open spaces was seen as an opportunity to maintain organizational and spatial continuity between the “inside” and “outside”, while making sure that other constraints and limitations are addressed adequately.
Since it is a model, a prototype for a penitentiary institution, it lacks a reference space for its location, and so the project sought to collect aggregate and contextual elements into a single unit, creating an internal environment that, on the one hand may interact with the surroundings (orientation, latitude, vegetation, visuals), and on the other hand represents a constituent element of an organizational model which is repeatable.
The challenge was to meet the needs of the administration announcing the competition by offering a project capable of expressing levels of adaptability related to two fundamental principles: first, through the identification of certain functional modules of approximately 50 x 55 metres, repeatable according to the needs of the specific project with a local aggregation scheme that allows different solutions through the integration or modification of the individual modules and their relationship with others in a final, partially or completely different, transformed facility; second, through the choice of architectural and vegetation forms via the materials utilized. The “personalization” of the project ensures the integrity of and respect for a local identity.
The elements intervening in and influencing the proposal are multiple:
The choice of vegetation, which cannot be detached from the geographical and environmental characteristics of the location,
Several architectural features which may require adaptation to climatic and meteorological factors, such as the differentiation of the main buildings with pitched roofs of the traditional type, in accordance with the location, characterizing the surfaces with different materials and slopes,
The use of other materials such as brick façades, coloured plaster or stone cladding, to achieve a continuity with the local building tradition.
The combination of these elements, although originating from a common plan, means that there are almost as many local project variations as there are new penitentiary facilities, as each one expresses its own identity.
The environmental factor has such a high qualitative and re-educational value for the project that it is the subject around which the complex is planned. The project proposal, as is evident in the organization of the plan and the character of the individual buildings, identifies a hierarchy of open green space which is divided into four levels:
The central park. All major internal relationships in the facility involve the central park, a hub of routes and a compositional element around which the main buildings are distributed. The park should be in view; all the rooms in the detention area and most of the service areas and offices are placed so as to enjoy a glimpse of nature and of attractive trees marking the passage of the seasons. The park is a place to go to and to cross to reach other areas of everyday life. Also a place of spirituality, the centre houses the Temple of Peace.
The courtyard. Each group of buildings has its own private garden, a portion of green area which is equipped and planned differently, and which acts as a natural extension of the internal environments. Defined as an “air zone”, it is organized into different areas delimited by metal fences with hedges. Here one may stroll, play, or read outdoors, or eat out in the open in areas next to the dining rooms. The meeting room complex is in a series of buildings around the protected open spaces, culminating in family meeting areas which are each connected to a small patio. Many of the other buildings are developed around their own open space, in a play of contrasts between the free area of the park and the enclosed borders of the gardens and courtyards.
The urban gardens. The areas limiting the urban zones are in many cases used as gardens. Transition zones between the housing and the agricultural areas: within the institution, along the dividing wall between the detention area and the barracks and housing for prison officers and near the entrance, vegetable gardens have been allowed for, small plots of land divided by hedges to give a maximum number of prisoners the opportunity to grow their own produce and manage an outdoor space.
The sports facilities. Both the penitential area for sports and that for the prison officers are divided into modules alined with the other spaces for the organization of activities.
The use of suitable and strategic natural energy resources is proposed in order to highlight the energy issue, offering solutions that include the use of alternative technologies, which are more economical and will create opportunities for the training of specialized personnel for an economic sector in constant evolution.
The activities and facilities introduced in the project:
Special storage areas fitted for the collection of waste for reuse through incineration or composting;
Collection of rainwater in underground containers for differentiated and alternative use in the toilet cisterns, to supply the lake used as an additional water reserve and for irrigation;
Differentiated waste and biomass in a thermal plant for the production of heat in combination with the central heating system;
Use of photovoltaic panels for specialized surveillance, alarm systems and outdoor lighting systems as an alternative, but not a substitute for a traditional energy source;
Use of thermal panels for production of hot water for direct use, to be placed in particular on the roofs of the detention blocks, the prison officer accommodations, the barracks and on all buildings having an even partial need of hot water;
Persons and material within the penitentiary shall use electric vehicles for internal transport requirements.
The area available for the new penitentiary, as indicated in the competition announcement, is a rectangle of approx. 80,000 square metres (370 x 216), bordered on one side by a street and organized on a modular grid as an ideal continuation of the surrounding agricultural or urban pattern.
The wall, an architectural element with the primary functions of protection and closing, divides the area into two portions, creating a relationship of disjointed involvement between the world of the prison officers and the interior of the facility, the “outside” and the real “inside “. Two distinct areas are thus identified, allowing the barracks and housing for police officers to face towards the public, and the wall to embrace and enclose the detention buildings, which face the central green space.
The entrance to the prison from the public road is via a break incorporated into the wall, a dominant element of the project which characterizes the size of the village it surrounds and protects, opening to those who are about to enter a view of the entirety of the volumes and of the open spaces that constitute it.
The complex consists of a combination of buildings and developed open spaces, each with its own character and identity according to the assigned activity, and within which the penitentiary village’s inhabitants may move as they need or must.
After entering the compound, a short path flanked by parking spaces leads internally to the entrance building and reception building for new arrivals (C). It is small, welcoming, with individual accommodations, service areas for the reception procedures, and for medical and aptitude testing. Connected to this is the personal items storage area (D) for the custody of the effects and property of each detainee. To the right of the entrance (B), the main path leads toward the compound’s interior. The agents’ services and rooms are found here. After passing through the controls, you enter the meeting house (E) near the first entrance point. The two-storied meeting house is structured so as to allow an immediate glimpse of the park and the buildings facing it. The easily accessible location makes it simple for visitors, family members, lawyers and magistrates to use. There are areas planned for individual interviews, differentiated spaces for conversations on various levels, apartments for family meetings, work areas for judges, lawyers, educators, all distributed between indoor and outdoor spaces and integrated with each other.
Behind the meeting house are the office building and the surveillance centre (F) with environments for educators, meeting rooms, offices for the management of the working groups, archives, services, administration and management. Constructed as a “bridge” crossing and overlooking the park, it dominates physically and perceptually.
The central park area is lined with access roads to the various nuclei that limit the green area. The first path near the building leads to the infirmary (I), a small building with two floors housing an outpatient service and small inpatient department with its own green area.
The next building is the shopping centre (L) with shops, a barber, hairdresser, laundry, kiosk, structured so as to be accessible and usable by all the inhabitants of the penitentiary village and directly overlooking the park. Proceeding along the path, after the infirmary the next building is the kindergarten (M) a small, simple building housing spaces furnished for toddlers.
Next to the detainee housing module is the detainees’ sports area, equipped with playing fields and locker rooms. At the head of the park, opposite the management and administration building and in a symbolic location, is the Temple of Peace (U), a small building for worship which revives a characteristic element of every village of any ethnicity. It is a place of intimacy with oneself and one’s faith, because even its minimum size offers three distinct spaces designated for religions.
On the other side of the park, along with the other detainee housing modules, two centres for collective activities are located: the gym (O) with changing rooms and services for the detainees, and a training and education centre (N). This is also accessible from the internal path which runs along the park. The centre (N) is a building of modest size, on two levels, housing a library with reading rooms and classrooms for training and educational activities.
Within the detention facility, but external to the secured area, there are other service groups: the warehouses and general services section (G) located near the administration, easily accessible via the service road that runs around the collection of buildings and which passes the kitchen with its adjoining spaces necessary for the preparation and distribution of meals to be delivered to the various units. The kitchens also house areas for training activities in the catering and food sector. Other maintenance services such as a central laundry, a garage-workshop, stores and warehouses are provided for.
In the corner diagonally across from the entrance and served by the service road lies the centre of production activities (R): two single-storied buildings with services and a community cafeteria. Work-type production for third parties may be performed here. These activities will vary in the various penitential locations, determined also by the needs of the area surrounding the prison (carpentry, machine shop, assembly workshop, restoration workshop, etc.).
The technology services (S) are located in a position easily accessible from the barracks: the monitoring station, power plant, generators, interruptible power supply units (S1); the central thermal plant, thermal ventilation, and water station (S2), and additional core services dedicated and suitably equipped for the collection of waste (S3).
Ideally situated to be used both by the penitentiary village and the public is the auditorium - theatre (T) with approximately 150 seats, located at the bend in the patrol road with controlled access from the barracks. One part is located in the park and opposite the administration offices, and the other side is outside the wall, overlooking a square near the prison officer barracks. It is planned as a structure that can simultaneously host detainees and the public from outside on two different levels in order to reduce control activities during events. The theatre space could also on occasion function independently and therefore be managed to produce a profit.
The basic custodial units (H), are the modules housing the accommodation and ancillary services for about 64 inmates, repeated in this project in the three buildings around the park. The buildings are four-storied with a structure and façade reminding one of the homes commonly found in Italian cities.
The entrances are on the ground floor, where a monitoring and control point located in the front lobby filters the various functions: common areas, game rooms, training areas, reception and events, as well as a canteen space divided into several small rooms that can be used for group activities. Inside this building a certain degree of freedom of movement may be imagined, not only between the inner spaces but also through to the outdoor garden. The green space is accessed by the common spaces on the ground floor. It is an area appropriately defined, organized and equipped in three areas: a space for outdoor seating outside of the cafeteria, an area for outdoor play, for example with a bowling green and soccer field, and an area to read or chat in peace. The upper floors are accessed from the lobby area, with the possibility of separate paths for detainees and for those visitors who have access to the unit. The first and second floor contain the living spaces for detainees, rooms with two or four beds designed to offer each detainee privacy. It is here that detainees will meet after their workday.
The room for two people has its own bathroom, fitted with the usual facilities, hot and cold water, and artificially ventilated. A mobile equipped mini-kitchen will allow the independent cooking or heating of food, and for washing dishes.
The room for four persons has a sleeping area organized into four autonomous areas, its own bathroom, ventilated externally and with all the usual fittings, and a living area with a fully equipped kitchen. Both the two and four-bed rooms have a balcony overlooking the park.
Each detainee has their own bed, a bedside table and shelves for personal items. A small work/study table is foreseen, as well as a table for those who choose to dine in their room.
The decision of the planners to position all the rooms so that they face the park, providing each with a small terrace for watching the passage of the seasons or simply to hang washing, responds to the need to condition the lives of the detainees via their environment, and to promote re-education and rehabilitation, making the living and work spaces their “own” and allowing for the personalization of the spaces.
The corridor leading to the rooms in the longest wing, purposely limited in length, has a curved wall to eliminate the dramatic effects of anxiety and distress produced by long, straight corridors. This choice has positive effects, especially for prison officer controls. The curved wall opens onto the living room spaces which face outwards, towards the courtyard of each unit, offering direct light and views. Each floor is equipped with service areas: an office and contact room, a surveillance zone and a small storage area.
The top floor houses two large studios equipped for arts and crafts activities, for business-type activities, for personal hobbies or educational purposes. Included are rooms that can be reserved for detainees who are kept under special conditions or in isolation.
For a logical optimization of resources, and with the objective of re-education, all prisoners are to follow some form of employment. In accordance with the logistics determined by the administration, as well as on the basis of personal vocations and the length of stay, each inmate, after an initial period of analysis and adaptation, is to be inserted into one of the areas of activity.
In addition to specialized fields dedicated to production, detainees, supported by educators, will contribute to the management and maintenance of the entire system by performing services as required, such as within the library, laundry, kitchen, storage, park maintenance, cleaning, etc.
The organization of work activities foresees workteam groups providing services at various levels and in various fields:
The maintenance and cleaning sector - in turn divided into maintenance and cleaning of public spaces, cleaning and maintenance of outdoor spaces, involving several workteams assigned to the core services.
The maintenance of power plants (solar panels, photovoltaic) and plant engineering.
Agricultural sector employees for park maintenance and the care of the gardens located along the wall.
The service sector - employed in the collection and recycling of waste, in activities related to the operation of the kitchen, laundry and other services.
Building maintenance and repair sector.
Productive activities - organized as a genuine business activity linked to the local economy.
The organization of these activities will influence the facility’s operation and maintenance costs, which can then be optimized by searching for the best balance between the efficiency of the activities and the self-sufficiency of the village system for a solution that offers the greatest efficiency and profitability. The project, as a part of an urban and building model, necessarily proposes a model of life and organization which may prove effective from the point of view of rehabilitation, while maintaining security levels.
The wall that delimits the detention area separates the area designed for the prison officers, creating its own dimension, involved in the complex yet functionally autonomous. The area (V) is organized along the public access road with a separate entrance (A2) which leads to the accommodation, the barracks, the theatre and the technological plant.
The barracks (V1) are arranged on four levels and built around a central courtyard with a swimming pool. General services, a gym reserved for staff, a canteen with indoor and outdoor spaces, offices, classrooms, and meeting rooms are all located on the ground floor. On the upper floors, the rooms are organised as doubles for 70% of the staff and single rooms for the remaining 30%. They are planned as small studios, with a bathroom, a kitchenette, a work desk, table, and a bed area. The rooms for two people maintain an acceptable degree of privacy for each occupant.
Townhouse accommodation (V2), 8 of 120 square meters and 8 of 60 square meters, are located in small groups, along the exterior of the wall. Built in continuity with the typical urban fabric and almost as if created, as often happens in the fortified cities, as part of the fortified wall, these are independent of each other with their own outdoor space.
The heat required for hot water production will be obtained from waste incineration. During any thermal plant maintenance periods, heat will be produced by a central gas plant using natural gas; the boiler room must also be able to supplement the production from thermal treatment during peak usage that may occur in the winter months. In each room, including of course inside the cells, at least one fan-coil with a special thermostat must be installed to allow the heating of the environment to be adjusted as required.
An air exhaust system for the elimination of odours is planned for: the kitchens connected to the staff and detainee canteens; kitchenettes in the detainee housing modules and in the staff accommodations; windowless bathrooms. One or more exhaust fans is to be installed within each of the areas mentioned. A system of centralized air treatment for the detainees’ rooms is not provided for as the degree of natural ventilation is deemed suitable to ensure sufficient air exchange.
The power supply will be provided for by the national grid in medium voltage. A transformer station will reduce the medium to low voltage. A generator is provided to ensure the complete self-sufficiency of essential services within the detention facility in the event of a power failure, while all electronic equipment related to monitoring will be connected to an uninterruptable power supply. In the case where even this unit fails, power from photovoltaic panels will be used for the outdoor lighting systems.
The surveillance system is planned for the various levels relative to the different functional areas of the complex. As mentioned above, the area of the facility is bordered by a patrol road enclosing the perimeter and skirting all the locations to be kept under surveillance. The entrance building (B1) together with the building along the wall (F5) are the points of first intervention for the management of security.
The whole surveillance system is linked to the tower where the central telematics and information nerve centre is located in a strategic position relative to the entire facility. A fully computerized system for optimal management of the detention facility has been devised in line with the organizational requirements expressed in the project description. Every occupant of the penitentiary village, both staff and detainees, will have their own badge linked to a personal code.
A central unit programmed by the management of the prison will indicate guard duty shifts, the places where the service is to be carried out, the passage times (varied from day to day) of surveillance patrols, the activities planned for each individual detainee (interview with attorneys, visits to other detainees, sport etc.).
In every room and within each cell a badge reader capable of fingerprint checks will be installed.
The central unit will verify through analysis of the badge data that the detainees and guards are in the predetermined locations and that there have been no unplanned changes to activities. The presence of elements not provided for will trigger an alarm prompting a check on the incident. Monitoring will be carried out by CCTV, recording patrol routes, accesses, and the corridors in front of the cells.
The prison guards will use electric vehicles; recharging the batteries will be by means of special photovoltaic panels.
There will be at least two each of the surveillance and the management centres, in case of failure.
Light poles with independent photovoltaic accumulators will ensure that in the event of the system being tampered with, illumination of the strategic points is assured.
The outer surface of the perimeter wall is punctuated by bastion-type constructions containing plant surveillance and remote monitoring systems. Access to the facility compound through the barracks is controlled by an independent monitoring system capable of commanding the technological and energy systems. Access to the barracks and housing from the public highway is monitored by a control point.
To optimize the work of the staff employed in controlling the individual internal locations, each building has been designed with a simple layout organized around connective spaces which remain linear as far as possible. Each zone is equipped with rooms dedicated to the surveillance personnel and telematics to control movement, opening and central locking of the doors.
Design team: Daniele Desii, designer and team leader; Raffaella Fagnoni, designer; Pier Matteo Fagnoni, designer, economic evaluation; Giorgio Spiga, assistant designer; Gherardo Montano, designer installations; Gianni Seracini, designer installations; Marco Podrini, graphic elaboration; Maurizio Messa, graphic elaboration; Guido Di Spigna, graphic elaboration; Stefano Benini, graphic elaboration. Consultants: Elio Satti, sociological studies; Olivia Fagnoni, psycological studies; Ornella Favero, interviews with detainees redazione; Ristretti Orizzonti, personal stories and experiences.
In this section, part two, we move inside the prison and present a variety of chapters that combine empirical and theoretical approaches to the microphysics and the embodied experiences of being imprisoned. We start with the smallest and most locked-up space – the prison cell. In
This article reveals the prison bed’s
In the field of research on architecture and design the focus favors exterior expressions and planning of space. However, interior design and its objects such as beds, chairs and tables are experienced long-term by inmates in a close and intimate relationship, and therefore can be expected to have a greater impact. This article attempts to expose details and phenomena produced by
“
This article is an attempt to create further understanding of how the
Nina’s, Susan’s and Gunilla’s narratives are personal descriptions of lived experience of the prison’s interior design. It is the space where design, materiality and designed objects get close to the body, and form a socio-material place in which the inmate’s everyday life is produced. The cell is also one of the few places in prison that affords some privacy. Meeting the three inmates in
The physical environment in prison can be understood through three underlying concepts of the prison system: (1) penal ideological principles, (2) rehabilitation and care ideology, and (3) economy and rationality. (Hammerlin,
Since the 1960s and 1970s progressive ideas have declined and the political idea of total security (and its harm to inmates) is expected to be mitigated through ´good´ architecture, landscaping and interior design (Petersen,
This article is sectioned in three parts. First I will present the field of design in relation to prisons, followed by theoretical and methodological considerations, and an introduction to the applied ethnographic design method ‘Sketch and Talk’. In the second section I present the ‘Sketch and Talk’ material which aims to give both a rich descriptive understanding of the three inmates’ everyday experience of the prison cell, as well as to elucidate phenomena that are specific to design related human experience in prison. The third section, the discussion, will critically view and discuss the specific phenomena and finally suggest further areas of investigation and possibilities in the field of design.
Design is neither good nor bad, but can operate in alignment with specific intentions in the socio-material space of the prison cell, a space of constant negotiation and uncertainty. Inmates do not know when their territory will be invaded and controlled. When meeting Nina, I ask her how often the inspections are conducted. She says that sometimes it can go months between them, other times weeks. “
Due to the spatial and temporal limitations, the interior and objects of a prison cell could be expected to have a greater impact on human senses than a domestic setting would – the physical environment is more enclosed. These spatial, temporal and metaphysical conditions are, after all, the execution of the punishment. In other words, the designed objects and interiors represent and speak the language of punishment however ‘normal’ they may be. As the cognitive scientist Don Norman states, “Basically, if something interacts with us, we interpret that interaction; the more responsive it is to us through its body actions, its language, its taking of turns, and its general responsiveness, the more we treat it like a social actor. This list applies to everything, human or animal or non-animate” (Norman,
The specific qualities of the interior, and furniture especially, are rarely discussed in research and literature on prison design. The lack of studies, and lack of attention to interior design by the prison services is illustrated by scholars in Denmark studying the ‘normalized’ prison of Eastern Jutland. Brun Petersen states that, “It is interesting that, contrary to the Prison Service’s high ambitions that the architecture would help ‘reform’ and ‘re-socialize’ the criminal subjects, no such ambitions were attached to the level of furniture, which, it could be inferred, is seen as having little consequence for the social life of the prison.” (Petersen,
The prisoner’s list of losses as an outcome of experiencing prison is extensive. Among them are: loss of power, anonymization, isolation, desocialization, loss of objects, loss of sexuality, loss of relationships, loss of care, and physical and psychological deprivation (Hammerlin,
The field/method of EBD, which is described as, “The process of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes.” (Design,
‘Sketch and Talk’ is a qualitative method being developed by the author in a tentative iterative process in real-time-space interpersonal situations. The method is based on semi-structured interviews with simultaneous hand sketching of the discussed interior. Sketching in real-time has proven itself as a mediator between the respondent and the researcher as it smoothens the somewhat odd discussion about specific details of the interior and how they are experienced. Focusing on an interior detail makes neither the researcher nor the respondent the center of attention.
Understanding space through pen and paper is an activity that raises the level of consciousness to the spatial orientation and relationship between humans, objects and their surroundings. “Sketching helps the designer to find unintended consequences…” (Cross,
‘Sketch and Talk’ facilitates zooming in on physical details essential to the inmate and can exclude surrounding visual clutter. These details, and the narratives they convey, play a significant role in finding phenomena. A drawn image, with care not to denote personal marks of identification, can show the interviewee’s body in relation to the interior, thus contributing to a better understanding of potential design problems, as well as portraying the interview situation.
The analysis of the material has followed a thematic approach where the text and sketches as a whole have been studied repeatedly to find significant reccurring phenomena. The researcher’s pre-understanding of certain phenomena bound to the design of the cell are essential for the interpretation. It is not possible to leave this out of consideration, nor would it be desirable. However, there must be an awareness and an acknowledgement of how it colors the analysis and in situ choices.
Inmates are a vulnerable group without a strong voice in society. To conduct research in closed environments therefore requires the inmates’ consent and a dignified, respectful and reflective approach of not doing harm. By discussing and highlighting power relations inherent in the physical environment, the inmate and the researcher can acknowledge the lack of balance and recognize socio-spatial inequalities. The situation calls for caution and there is no reason not to see that, “[…]the invasion of a persona is an intrusion into a person’s self-boundaries” (Sommer, 1969). With as few as three respondents the empirical material in this article cannot be said to represent inmates as a general group. Therefore, it is important to see the narratives as
For the following ‘Sketch-Talks’ it was decided not to specify the prison compound. Information on why the respondent was incarcerated has also been left out. In addition, the inmates’ names have no correlation to their actual names.
The following Sketch-Talks took place in Spring and Fall 2016. Nina has contributed twice, Susan and Gunilla once. Each meeting lasted 45-75 minutes.
In the texts and sketches the client/prisoner/inmate/subject/respondent/informant is referred to as
All writing in italics is a combination of transcription and subjective observations. Dialogue in quotations is directly transcribed notes from data. Speech not quoted refers to expository observations by the author, referred to as ‘I’. The dialogue is based on observations, notes and memories from the meeting. In the three following meetings ‘the author’ switches to the pronoun ‘I’, to emphasize the face to face situation with the respondent, as well as the subjective experience.
From previous interviews with inmates, and patients in psychiatric care, I have found that back problems are a common cause of physical pain.
Nina is one of few inmates I have met so far who defines prison as her home. Nina’s reasoning for this definition is, as she says, to “
A couple of weeks after I met Susan I attended a talk by Zygmunt Bauman. On the subject of hope he stated that it is “the ability to imagine an elsewhere”.
Susan’s personal narrative raises the question of how the physical environment should be designed so as not to trigger trauma. Can design mitigate emotional pain, or at least not reinforce it? What type of knowledge, and what type of design is needed? “In general, elements are more likely to be negative distractions if they are imposed on patients without the possibility of personal choice or control” (Ulrich,
Gunilla, the last inmate I met, illuminates another big issue, apart from mental health: How will the prison services handle the growing population of aging inmates?
Gunilla solved a design problem that most likely would have had a different solution outside the prison. Possibly she would not have used bibles, but an adjustable bed. The increasing amount of aging prisoners is an outcome of demographics and politics. This is, and will be, a challenge for prisons to develop and implement supportive interior design. In Sweden the awareness of these future needs appears to be low. In a newspaper article in
In the meetings with Nina, Susan and Gunilla we talked about the interiors and specifically the furniture. The three women spend vast amounts of time in their beds and this has emerged as a reccurring piece of furniture with narratives of different phenomena. This is not to say that other details, objects and so forth of the interior are of less importance, or convey less important phenomena. However, the bed stands out, not only through its disciplinary power and its control of the body in the space of the prison cell, but also as a place of departure for metaphysical journeys. It holds and releases at the same time – it holds for surveillance and corporal damage, and it releases Nina’s journeys to “elsewhere”. This “distribution of space” (Foucault,
In present-day society the bed has become both a workplace and multifunctional space. Social connections and physical needs can be maintained through networked electronics that bring the world to the bed. The architecture historian Beatriz Colomina highlights this phenomenon:
What is the nature of this new interior which we have decided collectively to check ourselves into? What is the architecture of this prison in which night and day, work and play, are no longer differentiated and we are permanently under surveillance, even as we sleep in the control booth? New media turns us all into inmates, constantly under surveillance, even as we celebrate endless connectivity. (Colomina et al.,
Colomina’s metaphor of the domestic prison becomes somewhat ironic in relation to Nina’s, Susan’s and Gunilla’s contexts. None of them have access to computers or internet, a huge difference to society outside prison and damaging for social relations. Nevertheless, considering all types of activities carried out within the physical space of the bed in the prison cell, the bed can be seen as an involuntary prison within the prison itself. At the same time the bed becomes a universe to experience the world
Furthermore it is interesting to see how both Colomina and Nina refer to the bed as a place where “[…] night and day, work and play, are no longer differentiated […]” (Colomina et al.,
Inmates and patients
It may be asked why the design of the prison cell has not been influenced by similar spaces that hold numerous ingenious design solutions? Sailboats, pod hotels, and train compartments all have smart and cost effective solutions for space that transform and correspond to the circadian rhythm. It is a tricky task though; these spaces contain interior design objects that can be hazardous in a prison environment. The tension between designing for security/safety
Smart and flexible interior designs that are up to date with contemporary human activities should be included in prisons. Why not let the design of the cell support the ‘keeping of the self’ rather than threatening to ‘lose it’, as Nina expresses. It should be possible to seek novel ideas for designs that can bring new and better conditions for inmates and staff and still hold relevant demands for security. Outdated cell designs that are based on economy, rationality, penal ideological principles and entrenched traditions need to be challenged. How does bad design align with ‘humane’ rehabilitation and care ideology? Improved quality of life through improved quality of sleep is nothing but a winning formula for all stakeholders.
Further design studies are suggested, which can contribute alternative designs for prison cells including (multi-)functional solutions to real problems. These designs need to deal with security/safety aspects and relate to the reality of all aspects of prisons. Nevertheless, it is critical to evaluate if, and how, security/safety enforces corporal punishment and penal ideologies at the expense of comfort and quality of sleep for inmates. Further design studies on the interior of prisons can also turn to the theory of socio-material studies, the concept of time-space and carceral geography, which may open up novel levels of understanding interior design and raise questions as to how the design of space and marking of time interrelate, questions that are explicitly brought up by Nina and Susan. Continued exploration and further development of ‘Sketch and Talk’ is an ongoing process to gain better understanding of the lived experience of interior design in prisons and similar institutions.
*
The quote was noted by the author at Zygmunt Bauman’s lecture
The inmates have no access to internet.
Field work by the author at psychiatric hospitals in Sweden
What do a lunch table, a battle and a mirror have to do with prison architecture and the young imprisoned body? Through a close reading of three different events, the article analyzes action-forces in play in Youth Units
We have all experienced how we, when we enter a prison as researchers, more or less consciously glide into energies, atmospheres, tempos and ways of talking. One of my clearest memories of architecture was when I, some years ago, walked within Rebibbia Prison in Rome. This is a big prison with over two thousand inmates. The open windows in the corridors, the breeze from outside, a strong smell of clean floors and an atrium filled with prisoners and family struck me as different with respect to many Norwegian prisons, and made me interested in how prison architecture affects the imprisoned body.
Prison architecture, in this article, refers to buildings, interiors and other physical installations, as well as to a place that evolves through meetings between people, things and the way people talk. Prison architecture conditions social relationships, at the same time as the people inside react and make their mark on the materiality of the prison. This socio – material understanding (Østerberg,
My starting point is that prison architecture is not neutral. It is at all times and places involved in exerting power: constructed as a place for torment, where punishment takes place (Christie,
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 37 (c) states:
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture emphasizes that children and young people are particularly vulnerable in terms of human rights violations and child vulnerability, making the threshold for treatment, punishment torture or ill-treatment lower than for adults (Mendez,
To approach how prison architecture affects prisoners we have to use other methods than asking people. As researchers we have to put ourselves in situations where we become affected, we have to look for and search in hidden places and allow ourselves to transcend the knowledge that is often taken for granted. In this article I shall attempt to look beyond how the prison looks and what the staff say that they do and instead, inspired by a Deleuzian approach, focus on events that can help develop an understanding of relationships between prison architecture, action-forces and the young imprisoned body in the Youth Units. Before I go further, I will give a short overview of the historical, ideological and political background for the creation of the Youth Units in Norway.
The discussion for or against putting children in prison is not new. Neither is the idea of individual correctional care based on the therapeutic community (Hammerlin,
Massive criticism against putting children in prison came in the 1960s and 1970s both in Norway and Europe. The criticism was not simply directed at children’s prisons, but the use of institutions for treating people in general, such as public childcare institutions, psychiatric institutions and special schools (Basaglia,
The development of prisons for children, can be understood as a response to three major challenges. Firstly, how the society should react towards children who commit serious crimes, often repeatedly. Secondly, how Norway should conform to the regulation in The United Nations Convention on The Rights of the Child (UNCR, 20. November 1989) stating that children should not be imprisoned. Thirdly, how Norway should respond to The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment from 1991 (ECPT) that has criticized Norway for placing children in prison together with adults, and for the use of isolation and remanding children in custody.
The Youth Units could be read both as an answer and a solution to the problems mentioned above. It satisfied society’s need for punishment and security; it was a political and juridical solution to meeting the principles in the UNCR and the ECPT; and made it possible to secure a broad majority among different political parties in Parliament regarding the security problem related to the Youth Reaction
In this article prison architecture is studied from an immanent perspective. This means approaching the field in a broad sense, asking what architecture can do to our bodies (Frichot and Loo,
Immanence refers here, to a
It is not the young man who steals that is the prisoner, Deleuze says, it is the becoming prisoner that produces a universal prisoner (Deleuze and Guattari,
With every child coming into the prison, with every staff member coming to work, constellations are created, collapse and are created anew; not just between people but between people and artefacts like keys, tables, clothes, visitation, television etc. Human relations are rooted in such material things (Østerberg
While a Foucauldian perspective would imply a focus on power relations (Foucault,
By moving the focus from the subject as personalized and separate, we come in contact with desires where machineries of intensity, tempo and action-forces become visible as we will see in the three following events: the lunch table, the battle and the mirror. All these three events have a force within them: the force to affect and produce effects in bodies.
Affects could be understood as potentialities with the possibility of bringing action-forces into play, but are not the same as feelings. Feelings are, for Deleuze, more the effects of affects (Deleuze and Guattari,
The article is based on material from an ongoing research project regarding the establishing of and the practices within the Youth Units in Norway
There is no singular insider or outsider position researchers occupy during fieldwork, rather myriads of figures and positions (Young,
Going back and forth between empirics and theory, I have in this article chosen three events that have a power within them (Sandvik,
The research project follows the ethical rules approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data together with an avowed intention to not be unaware of what happens to me on the way. As part of this, communication with staff about this article has been important
The lunch table is placed centrally, in the open space area in the prison. Big windows without bars, colorful textiles, make an open and minimalist impression. The central position of the table marks this space as particularly important. It is a place to cook, a place where youths and staff eat and a place to meet. The open space tells something important about what kind of prison space this is meant to be. Here you can be part of something in a non-demanding way. It is possible to hang around when somebody cooks, read or look out, curl up in the window post and be alone, but still remain social.
One of the staff members tells us that he eats together with the youths as often as he can. This is a way to show interest, a way to develop his relationship with the youths and also a way of taking the pulse of the atmosphere. Within Deleuzian terms we could say that he uses the forces present in the architecture, in the material, and in this way continues the architect’s idea of the kitchen as an informal and “natural” place to meet. The table is the central prison artefact, and the staff know that the table situation can be used for something productive; that it can affect and produce effects in bodies.
How it affects and produces effects cannot be predicted. What has happened the day before, a difficult telephone call, the temperature outside, the aromas from the kitchen, the light, sounds, tempo and energies melt together and affect the body and its capacity to affect and be affected by other bodies, both organic and material. All these elements can, according to Deleuze (
Becoming a part of it, I played along with the very phenomenon that I was studying (Sandvik,
The lunch table event illustrates a situation where different forces are at work and where it is difficult to isolate one thing from another. By moving the focus from the subject as personalized and separate, we come in touch with personal desires where machineries of intensities, tempo and action-forces become visible (Deleuze,
The architecture represented in the Youth Units, in one more than the other, has parallels to what Hancock and Jewkes (
The youths have their own cells, sometimes referred to as rooms by the staff. The prison space is meant to communicate an informal, aesthetic and caring atmosphere reflecting the ethical values of the Norwegian penal system based on humanistic principles, normalization, citizens’ rights, rehabilitation, help and care, and with the best interests of the child at its core (White paper 37). Seen as examples of new generation prisons, they are meant to reflect progress, humanism and lead one to think that prisons could be something more than just repressive institutions
In Norway, milieu work has for many years been a central part of the two year prison staff education. The concept milieu work should not be confused with milieu therapy, but is closely connected to dynamic safety
Milieu work is often organized so that each youth has a member of staff or a team around who is responsible for their individual plan. The teams and the staff in general have various ways of working according to the child’s individual needs and its best interests. There is not one single understanding of the concept milieu work or what it entails. It may be understood as a product of the various actors within the field. The prison staff (such as prison officers and social workers etc.) usually use the concept milieu work, while the therapists who come from the imported services
This becomes clearer when we turn our focus backstage (Goffman,
One way of doing this is by studying when and what happens when the tolerance limits are contravened or threatened, when routines are broken, talk becomes a source of concern, dynamic security becomes threatened and staff bodies cannot keep the boys in place - as in the following event
The event is used as input to develop an analytical understanding of prison materiality, action-forces and various other forces in different spaces within the Youth Units. The space, that during the lunch table event seemed open, became during the battle event more limited. The space becomes more and more narrow before it opens up a bit again when things calm down. Unlike the lunch table event where a body without organs is created between staff and the youths around the table, the constellations here are different. In the battle situation the youths unite and create a body without organs between the two of them. Suddenly there is another atmosphere, interpreted as negative behavior by the staff. This body without organs continues beyond the youths’ different cell doors. We see how the cell door both separates and unites. Even with the cell door closed and the youths inside their own cells, they are, in this event, united - being integral parts of the same socio-material situation. The staff, on the other hand, are separated from the youths but united through their role as action force. So, the primary relationship in this event is between the youths on one hand, and the staff on the other. Being locked up inside the cell, having walls, doors and staff around, we see how the open architecture turns into a closed prison space and how the materiality, the cell, and staff bodies in this event create another type of social relationship than around the lunch table.
The event illustrates the tolerance limit present in this situation, what it is about and what happens when the limit is reached. In this situation punishment, in the form of supervised association, is imposed and makes security the major task. We see how criminal ideology, with rigid controls and security systems embodied by material, social, administrative, technological and symbolic measures, comes into play (Hammerlin,
But this is not the whole picture. We also notice how the prison staff bring milieu work into play by keeping the youths informed, not leaving their sight, and in the end giving one of them snus and cigarettes and the chance to feed the goats – in fact together with the staff member that the youth had initially threatened. Here we see glimpses of another prison machinery: milieu work where soft power (Rose,
From the cell as a socio-material physical battlefield, I will now concentrate on action forces and the process of becoming within the smallest prison space, the cell. Several of the young prisoners talk about their cell and conversations they have with themselves about life, their situation and the future:
The prison cell here becomes a narrow space. While we, in a seemingly free and happy action, do not notice the facticity of the situation, a body that is sick or forced notices the facticity (Østerberg 1989:28). Behind the locked cell door, this young inmate creates a body without organs with the mirror. As in the Brothers Grimm story or the more well-known Walt Disney version of Snow White, the mirror becomes more than an object, more than a thing: rather it becomes a body without organs that he can talk to. He uses this mirror-body, talks to it and asks questions.
Looking at architecture in an open and dynamic way, we can notice if the youths want or do not want to belong, identify or do not identify with the place. As this youth formulates:
The rules, being locked up and the fear of getting reported stress the inmates. What they say gives us a better understanding of the action-forces at play. To show up and participate is crucial in this prison space. The youths are expected to participate in activities during the day. They sense these action-forces in a very precise way, as expectations with the underlying threat of sanctions. If they do what the staff expect, the atmosphere becomes calm and pleasant. It is only when they do not behave as expected, when they do not participate or withdraw from activities or from contact with the others, that the action-forces manifest themselves. If attempts at motivating fail, then gentle pressure will be applied. If the softer approach does not have the desired effect, then the consequences of unwanted behavior will be explained. Being “reported” is, within the prison system, a serious matter as it could have important implications, and may influence decisions regarding various benefits such as leave or the possibility of going outside the prison with the staff. Cooperating and participating is often interpreted by staff as a positive sign of change (Fransson and Brottveit, 2016).
Sometimes the youths talk of the prison system, as a machine that transcends themselves and the staff members. As one of the youths says, these are not rules made by those that work in the unit, but rules that the prison and the prison staff have to follow. One of the discussions about and in the Youth Units is the use of uniforms. One of the units uses uniforms, the other does not. One of the youths answers my question about using or not using uniforms in this way:
No matter how the Youth Unit and staff would like to present themselves, as being different from other prisons, many of the youths we have spoken to still clearly see the Youth Unit as a prison. One explanation for this could be that, even if the prison intends to be different, it is the same prison machinery and action-forces working within this system as within other prison systems. The system works and creates intensities and an atmosphere that, for inmates, create an effect that for them is the same as any other prison. Even if the prison staff insist that their ways of working are action-forces born of a desire to care, it seems to many youths that the action-forces relating to security and control are the most noticeable.
Could this be because the power underlying the mild milieu-work machinery, backed up by dynamic security, is subtler, and less clear? Or does this softer approach effect their body just as much as a more stringent regime? This we do not know. We could also ask if “soft power” can be felt as more threatening than “hard power”, given the youths’ street capital? These are complicated matters important when discussing care in spaces of control for youths. To get even closer to the issue of action-forces within Youth Units, I asked one of the youths what is expected. What sort of young people does the unit want them to become?
“To follow” is a concept: follow rules, follow things, follow time schedules. The verb connotes orders or plans that other people have made for the youths without their involvement. But what about all the existential questions, questions that some of the youths ask in front of the mirror? How, and in what part of the prison space are they taken care of or allowed? Through talking to youths we become acquainted with the details of the particular action-forces at work; the desire to make a change by giving the youths alternatives, different experiences and maybe also contributing to social aspiration and social mobility. We see here how different action-forces, power and desire are linked together. The youths are affected by having to follow up something that others have decided for them; a machinery where the staff motivate and they are expected to follow.
The rules, the expectations and the idea of following are ongoing themes in several of the young prisoners’ descriptions of how prison action-forces affect and produce effects in their bodies. According to some of the youths the feeling of being in a prison varies according to the prison space, as this youth says:
Action-forces, either driven by power or desire, affect and create effects in young prisoners’ bodies and tell us something important about their
Social relations between prison staff and young prisoners do not develop in a vacuum. Human relations are always connected to materiality (Østerberg,
The lunch table is situated in the central common space and is an invitation to participate and communicate. Desire is the leading principle. The staff want to share something with the youths, they are interested, they show respect and care and give the boys different experiences. Soft power is a way of governing (Rose,
In this analysis prison architecture has been understood as socio-material. It conditions people’s actions, as well as allowing the people within to react. This understanding of prison architecture draws attention to how architecture is experienced, how it communicates to people inside and affects the young imprisoned body. Architecture, prison artefacts and people melt together and create forces, producing energies and atmospheres. Through the various events we become aware of different prison spaces inside the Youth Units, supporting various processes of becoming. This raises important questions related to the understanding of what particular prison spaces contribute to youths’ processes of becoming within prisons in general, within particular prisons such as the Youth Units, as well as in various spaces within the units. By moving the focus from staff and youths as subjects, and instead focusing on events, I have tried out some analytical ideas regarding the relationship between prison architecture, action-forces and the imprisoned young body. My methodological approach has been to come into contact with various forms of desire - where machineries of intensities, tempo and action-forces have become visible. The prison space is supposed to affect. It is not just a place to complete the sentence or avoid relapse. The prison should be and should do something more. In this article, this “more” has been studied as action-forces producing different kinds of machineries that affect the process of becoming young men and women within the Youth Units. The article is meant as a work in progress and as input to methodological and analytical reflections regarding prison architecture, illustrated through examples from an ongoing study of the Youth Units in Norway. I use the opportunity to thank the youths and staff in the Youth Units, and hope we can continue the important discussions about finding out what kind of places the Youth Units are.
Youth Units is the classification used by the Norwegian Correctional Services. A discussion of whether “Youth Units” is a proper classification will be discussed in a later report (Fransson & Hammerlin
The research project is a critical study of the Youth Units in Norway on behalf of The Ministry of Correctional Care. The research is conducted together with Yngve Hammerlin, KRUS. A deep thank to Yngve Hammerlin for reading the article with critical eyes.
Youth Reaction is an alternative to prison for children under 18 years.
It is important to emphasize that the article is “a work in progress”. It is not the story of the Youth Units, neither a final analysis – but contributes to methodology and the analytical understanding of the Youth Units from an architectural and social-material point of view. The collection of data continues in the autumn of 2017 and a report will be produced in the spring of 2018.
A deep thank you to the staff for their involvement and their protection of “their youths” and for important comments on the article. I hope the discussions will continue.
The Youth Units in Norway are not equal regarding architecture, or characteristics. In one of the units the staff for instance use uniforms while in the other they do not. This will be followed up in the final report (Fransson and Hammerlin
Dynamic safety refers to a way of behaving (talk, body language etc.) that keeps things calm and does not provoke. It demands social skills and an ability to read social situations.
Both of the Youth Units have psychologists as part of the imported services in prisons.
A thank you to Tom Disney who organized the session “Care in Spaces of Control” at the Royal Geographers’ Conference in London in 2016.
This event is from a incident report. This is a report written by the staff after an incident. The incident is anonymized as much as possible. The important thing here is not to say how things are in Youth Units but to use the event as input to a better understanding of the social-material conditions and action-forces in Youth Units.
It is too soon in the analysis to say if this is a common view. Here I use it to stress an analytical point.
Static security is to use body force or equipment like body-cuffs to secure and control the situation.
Based on narratives from an inmate, this article focuses on the connection between prison architecture, punishment and pain in a post-humanistic perspective (Barad,
Humans are in constant dialogue with their physical environment, they move, smell, watch and sense their surroundings and leave behind material traces. An overall goal of this article is to study
Fredrik
In light of Fredrik’s narratives, the article seeks to challenge conceptual boundaries between theories of punishment, disciplinary practices and concepts such as body, pain and humanism, and study what affects the experience of punishment. More specifically the aim is to explore how the becoming of punishment can take place in the most
My first meeting with Fredrik was a momentous experience that thrust me into a new process of becoming as researcher. Suddenly, I found myself in a state where I was conscious of the presence of our bodies in the room, and the mood shifted from being formal to sensitive and sensuous. Fredrik’s narratives about his life in prison affected me and moved me into a new and unknown world - a world that I wanted to explore further. I was no longer just a listening and explorative researcher. In meeting Fredrik and his sensuous way of speaking and experiencing the world, the boundaries between my researcher role and my role as a fellow human became blurred. I let myself be affected by the moment, both by the mood and the open dialogue between us, and deviated from my planned interview questions. Especially when Fredrik told me about his experiences of pain relating to punishment, I could hear, feel and sense this in my own body. We entered a process of becoming as humans in meeting each other, and this experience affected me. Letting oneself move into the sensuous sphere, enabled us to open up and discover what happens in the moment, and it accesses another door to our experience of the world. I found myself in a mood without suitable words or concepts to convey my experience of what happened in the space between us. In other words, I was not able to disentangle myself from the moment and move into a different analytical landscape which was quite different from where I had been earlier. It was no longer about giving voice to the informant, but to moving in and out of a common landscape where old concepts gained new meanings. It was also about capturing new knowledge of the meaning of bodies’ movements in space, and a common awareness of the importance of interacting with each other. Retrospectively, I see how the pain in Fredrik’s narratives affected me. His narratives materialize as real scenarios of life lived in prison.
Meeting with Fredrik was also the beginning of my search for new analytical terms to conceptualize what happens in meetings with others right
According to Deleuze (
The article is based on an ethnographic field study
In the game between different events and types of prison materiality, like disciplinary practices, legislation, prison architecture, cells, keys, outdoor space, smells and sounds, bodies come in contact with each other and contribute to affective meetings between human and non-human materiality (Sandvik, In each negotiation-machinery it is debated as to which action forces have strength enough to achieve influence and what new processes of becoming the machinery is able to produce. The machine produces powers, intensities and currents, which are activated when various types of materiality pass through each other. Deleuze and Guattari (
Prison life consists of many events where different action forces meet, move, burst forth and produce what Deleuze and Guattari (
Deleuze and Guattari ( We will never ask what a book means, as signifier or signified; we will not look for anything to understand in it. We will ask what it functions with, in connection to what other things it does or does not transmit intensities, in which other multiplicities its own are inserted and metamorphosed and with what bodies without organs it makes its own converge.
The article has a post-humanist approach (Barad,
In prison, as elsewhere, unexpected and unpredictable things happen which affect inmates and employees in their meetings with prison materiality, here understood as an interaction between human and non-human materiality. According to Deleuze (
Current forms of punishment have replaced medieval methods, which focused on corporal punishment, for example dismemberment or public execution. Confinement, as a measure to prevent and treat criminal behavior is rooted in a newer humanistic view of punishment, which originated in post-Reformation Europe. On this basis, nineteenth century prison architecture was designed almost exclusively for the purpose of detention, training, regimentation and control. Criminals were seen as people without morals, knowledge or skills and were of no use to society. The intention of incarceration, under total isolation, was re-socializing under strictly controlled circumstances. Further, the idea was to protect and affect the inmates in a positive direction, and turn them into socially useful humans through hard work, strict daily routines and discipline (Hauge 1996).
The belief was that punishment in the form of isolation, safety, coercion and control, would result in stimulating repentance and self-control. Structured treatment programs like this, demanded a correspondingly structured architecture, and the reformers themselves developed a prison design intended to safeguard the execution of a sentence. Prisons in the early nineteenth century were, with minor variations, designed around a centrally located observation tower (cf. Panopticon), which consisted of galleries with entrances to solitary prison cells, which permitted full monitoring (Foucault
The idea of prisoners as being worth less than others has gradually changed to viewing them as equal fellow citizens. This has formed the basis for modern criminal law theory, developed in the nineteenth and twentieth century (Andenæs, 1996, Hauge, 1996)
Today’s punitive theories have influenced prison architecture in the direction of modern design, intended to accommodate daily life in prison, and the material standard in many Norwegian prisons is high. An example of new modern architectural design is Halden Prison, which opened in 2010 and can accommodate about 250 prisoners. The prison has attracted considerable international attention, due to its special architecture and high degree of comfort. The architects responsible for the prison buildings have deliberately omitted symmetry and axial order, as this often creates associations of human oppression (cf. Østfold Correctional Service). The buildings are located in ways that enable prisoners to move easily between their rooms, school, workplace and recreational activities in the best possible way.
The architectural configuration represents a universal design as a strategic tool in the Norwegian Correctional Service and is a new model in the Nordic context. The requirements of today’s prisons are that they should cover the prisoner’s material, psychological, physiological and social needs. The architectural approach in Halden Prison is therefore an attempt to “normalize” prison life and prepare inmates for a life outside.
My first meeting with this prison was overwhelming, and there is little doubt that the configuration of the prison architecture is intended to affect the execution of sentences and pave the way for inmates’ contact with others, both inside and outside the prison. The prison is in great contrast with earlier times, where the cells resembled dungeons and the inmates were isolated from contact with each other and the outside world. However, meetings and conversations with Fredrik have given me a new perspective on how punishment, pain and architecture are interwoven, and that comfort and modern prison design do not necesssarily guarantee humane imprisonment.
The following sections are based on Frederik’s diary notes from different periods in the atonement process, his texts and our conversations in which he describes his experiences with punishment, and his life in Norway’s most modern, famous and publicized prison.
On an otherwise completely normal day in 2011, my life was totally changed. Before, I was an ordinary man, I had a good job, but within seconds, I became identified as a criminal and I had an unexpected meeting with prison-Norway. My action was not calculated, I was in a stressful situation and I really regret what I did, but it happened and I must take my punishment.
In the process of becoming, as Deleuze talks about it, one achieves an existential stage in which life is simply immanent and open to new relations and trajectories (Deleuze, 1995:171). This meant a whole new reality for Fredrik, that removed him from his ordinary life. Suddenly he could no longer determine his own daily life. Fredrik recounts: When I was put on remand, I was a broken man. I was in a state of shock, despair and regretted my actions. I was confused and did not know how to behave in a prison. I was worried about the future, how it would be for my family and desperate for somebody to talk with.
A prison cell is a totally closed space of incarceration: In my little prison cell I have a bed, desk, bookshelf, a WC and a mini fridge. The fridge sounds like a luxury, but sometimes I am locked inside the cell most of the day and must have the ability to store food. On the wall, above my bed, I have a flatscreen TV, which has received more attention in the media than any other TV in history. I have a bathroom of one square meter, covered with white tiles from floor to ceiling. Here I have a sink, a toilet and a shower. I can confirm that one can take a shower, go to the toilet and brush one’s teeth without needing to move a step in this bathroom. The standard is good, but the size is problematic for an adult male, but having one’s own bathroom is a luxury, so I do not complain about this. (…) But I sit in my cell from eight o’clock in the evening, after being wished good night by a prison officer. I will not be out of my room again for 10 – 18 hours. (…) Do you know how hot it can be in a cell of 12 square meters when you cannot open the window? We have a glass window that is not possible to open and a “side window” 12 cm wide, which can be opened, but it does not help when the opening is so narrow that we cannot feel a thing (…). When there are staffing problems, among the prison officers, we are locked inside our cells even longer. (…) Once we were locked up in our cells continuously for three days, because prison officers were looking for a weapon they believed one of the prisoners had smuggled in. They never found anything, but it was difficult to be locked inside for such a long time. I wonder what outsiders know about how it feels to lose freedom.
Fredrik’s narratives illustrate how inmates are left alone in their prison cells indefinitely and how this affects them, both physically and mentally. The “real life” outside seems far away for Fredrik who sits locked into his small cell, while days and nights glide past.
The transition from being perceived as an ordinary man and to be seen as a criminal, was a powerful experience for Fredrik: I had packed, made myself ready and waited for the transport from the remand prison to the high-security prison. The prison officer came to pick me up at eight o’clock. I was handcuffed and we went down to the reception and into the car where the police waited. I was locked into a small cage like a dog with handcuffs. Hm, what will happen if we collide now and the car catches fire? I do not see the importance of treating us like disobedient animals when the government has decided that prisoners should return to society again. I want to tell people outside, that they should think about how easily people are degraded when they are treated like bad people.
Deleuze’s (
Usually we think of punishment simply as the deprivation of liberty, measured in a certain number of
Sometimes I cry over all the sadness I feel when I am out on leave and all I have caused others by being here. It hurts me deep into my heart. I cannot leave prison or call my family or a friend when I want to and they cannot reach me or give me important text-messages. My child cannot reach me when he wants, but I have made a sort of peace with it. When I go on leave, I am out in society and together with my family. But when I go back to prison I must sign off emotionally, everything must be switched off. There is one last spasm just before I go through the prison gates and my heart dies a little each time. I experience this as an additional penalty, but also for my family, because I become completely inaccessible. The pain will not go away, but things are going in the right direction. I am on my way back to a life, my own life.
Fredrik’s new life in prison consists of logging on and off each time he returns from leave. This gives meaning to the Deleuze and Guattari (
For the prisoners, people inside prison are the only points of human contact they have with the world outside their cells. Several of Frederik’s experiences in meeting with others, both staff and inmates, reawakens existing views of criminals, as being of less importance than the rest of us.
His treatment in prison contributed to Fredrik’s experiences of becoming a prisoner, and his life was largely dependent on the prison officers’ attitudes and decision-making: The Correctional Service is full of humans who rejoice in the power they have gained, through choosing a profession where they can hide behind the statement “best for society”. Everyone who is in prison has done something wrong and we know it, but the way we are treated, changes our attitudes and personalities. I had a confident personality before I was imprisoned and I’m really sorry for my actions, but the punishment is carried out without seeing me as a human. I have done something wrong, but my regret comes from my conscience and a good home background (…). I asked for help, but I did not get it and nobody saw me. I experienced this as if no one cared. Nobody is an individual here, no one is seen, but we are after all humans (…). The prison lawyers, who are responsible for processing applications for leave and representations, have rarely met the inmates. If the prison lawyer had taken the time to meet me before he made his decision as to whether I should be allowed to say goodbye to my dying father or not, I think the answer would have been different. My father died and I had no opportunity to be there. It is one year ago now. It hurts and I will never get over it.
The process of I had accepted the idea of serving my punishment in a high-security prison, but the treatment we receive in this prison amazes me. There are big differences between staff. I’ve experienced those who fight for prisoners’ rights, trust us and tell about their helplessness in meeting with the Correctional Service. I have also experienced staff who laugh at prisoners and smile when applications for leave, transfer to lower security or other long-awaited benefits are rejected. You would not believe this happens in a prison, which is referred to as the world’s most humane, luxurious prison.
Fredrik tells: My way to survive prison, without going crazy, is to keep myself active. I will always be myself and have found my way of surviving, but I was crying alone in my cell the first six months.
Fredrik served under very strict security conditions and he struggled to reconcile with his act: After I had been in prison for some weeks, I wrote a “conversation patch”, a form that must be filled out if you want an appointment with health professionals or a doctor. When I met the doctor, I asked if he could send me to a prison psychologist. Since I did not get an answer, I filled out a new form and asked for a psychologist again. After a few days, I received a verbal reply in which the doctor concluded that I did not need to talk with a psychologist. I had to work with what I had done by myself, but I could have a conversation with a priest. I accepted the offer, but I wanted another type of help. The priest advised me to talk to a psychologist. When I replied, that I could not do this, there was nothing more he could do for me. I asked for help when I was at my most vulnerable, and I admitted that I had difficulties due to my action. The phrase from the doctor, “It will pass with time”, illustrates what inmates in Norway’s best prison may hear when they ask for help. I committed an act that was completely atypical for me. I was not able to handle my feelings and asked for help, but I did not get it and nobody saw me. I experienced this as if no one cared. My choice fell on school so that I could fill my days with something other than brooding and painful feelings.
The experience of not being heard or seen as an individual, and the absence of help, affected Fredrik and contributed to amplifying his experience of pain.
We must accept that all our telephone calls are monitored, but it is difficult to have a normal conversation when you know that somebody is listening. We have no choice, even if it is humiliating and insulting, but when temporary staff ask me about my conversations I get angry. They should not listen for their own curiosity’s sake. I have good, pleasant conversations with my child and they are private. I do not want to talk about my child with a 20-year old summer help. Let me have something in peace. I decide what I want to talk about and with whom. The employees have no right to ask the inmates about the content of their conversations. This is not the reason for telephone monitoring.
It is not primarily the control and limitation of privacy Fredrik reacts to, but the way the control is exercised. He talks about unnecessary comments from various prison officers and how he, involuntarily, is exposed to other people’s interference and invasion of his private space. This is perceived as an expression of a ubiquitous and supervisory factory control (Foucault,
Fredrik describes the absence of contact and interaction with his family as one of the most painful experiences relating to punishment: The prison sentence prevents me from being present in normal family contexts and I am deprived of all authority here in prison. My child’s mother decides everything because our son lives with her. I speak with him every week and they live their lives. I have put myself in this situation, but I miss him and he misses me. I get to taste a bit of freedom when I go out on leave, but the trip back to prison afterwards is long and means a return to isolation and loneliness that is heavy.
Missing his dearest ones made it particularly lonely and painful to spend days and weeks in prison, especially during summertime: It is painful to talk about summer in a prison, it is lonely and it hurts. Others look forward to the summer, because summer means holidays, leisure, lazy days, sun, enjoying life, doing what you like and creating great memories with family and friends. This is the life “outside”. Reality is quite different inside prison. Summer means more time locked inside the cell, inexperienced temporary workers with little human insight, stagnant heat, brooding, headaches and a stronger longing for your loved ones. The school takes holidays in late June and the prison work operation is active only three weeks longer. For us who are not in work, this is the start of a period of confinement in the cell all day. Last summer it was extremely hot and no wind for several weeks. We did not get any air into our cells and we sat there, trapped with locked doors in heat up to 33 degrees, without the possibility of opening the window.
Fredrik’s meeting with other humans in prison has activated a pain which exceeded the experience of the actual punishment. In Fredrik’s experiences, we see how isolation combined with the way other people look upon him, the absence of social interaction and limited contact with his family and outside world, pains him and makes him a lonely man.
Fredrik points out that he lives in a luxury prison, but despite that, he says: I can still feel pain over the situation, because luxury does not necessarily make the incarceration better.
Newer Norwegian criminal policy is based on humanism, justice and equal treatment. Politicians often speak about a correctional service where care, rehabilitation and returning to society are central goals (St. meld. no. 37. 2007– 2008). When one talks about humane prison sentences this usually refers to respect and compassion in meetings between inmates and staff, and the importance of prison architecture that safeguards the prisoners’ needs for social life and facilities. Human compassion, a high level of comfort and a homelike atmosphere in prison are intended to make the atonement more humane.
As I read Fredrik’s narratives, he is constantly struggling for his self-worth and against the process of becoming as a criminal. He fights for his identity and to be seen as the person he feels he is. Meeting with prison machinery has led him deeper into the prisoner role and contributed to creating a static picture of him as a criminal offender. Deleuze and Guattari ( Whatever you ask prison officials about, they will reply, “Which number are you?” They are talking to you as a number in a succession and your name disappears.
Deleuze ( (…) There is no being beyond becoming, nothing beyond multiplicity; neither multiplicity nor becoming are appearances or illusions. (…). Multiplicity is the affirmation of unity; becoming is the affirmation of being. (Deleuze,
Seen from this perspective, the inmates have limited opportunity to influence the way others perceive them. They are in a continuous process of becoming in meetings with each other and through prison employees’ assessments and reactions, and not least in the way staff classify prisoners when they talk about them in different contexts or meetings (Fransson & Brottveit,
As previously mentioned, the prison where Fredrik serves his sentence is described in the media and by researchers, as one of the most luxurious and modern prisons in the world (Pratt Material luxury has no value when one cannot make one’s own choices. (…). I have read in newspapers and magazines about how nice it is in this prison and that there are no bars here. That is right, but imagine that you cannot go out and breathe the air when you want to. Life inside prison is completely different from life outside.
Foucault (
The panoptic system is today replaced by newer technological forms of concealed social control. Giertsen ( During one of Norway’s warmest summers, we were compelled to attend an indoor painting course. The temperature increased and we struggled with the heat in our cells, but we got the message that we were obliged to attend this course. It was arranged in summer, when we were entitled to one extra hour of air per day. Not to participate was registered as refusing to work and entailed wage deductions. A result of this course was that some inmates lost one of their two long-awaited hours of air in a period with tropical nights and heat waves.
The requirement to participate in the course, contributed to reinforcing the experience of confinement and control, in ways that affected and pained Fredrik.
Pratt ( This prison is described as the world’s most humane and luxurious prison, but what is luxury? What makes a prison humane and what is humanity? What we need is to cover our basic needs. Do you think I have a better life if I have material prosperity? Yes, I have often heard statements like this: “The criminals should be locked inside and the keys thrown away. They have no right to complain and should rot and die alone, and they can thank themselves. They have it better than the elderly in Norway”. I also thought like this before 2012. But now I’ve got the feeling that this prison is breaking hearts, hopes, dreams. I have lost the belief that there is something good in every human and that there is something in the phrase: “Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you”.
According to Dullum and Ugelvik ( It is evident that prison conditions in Norway are more humane than in many other countries it is natural to compare with. But the Nordic prison researchers emphasize that good physical prison conditions do not mean that serving a prison sentence is without great stress. Scandinavian prisons also carry out some of the dehumanizing practices that we find in other countries, such as a relatively extensive use of pre-trial custody and isolation. From a Nordic perspective the phrase “the Scandinavian exception” must therefore be nuanced.
For Fredrik it seems pointless to talk of humane prison conditions if inmates do not meet human compassion in their daily life in prison: The effect of punishment is much more severe than you can imagine. Inmates are very often offended, humiliated, degraded and mocked in Norwegian prisons. Many prisoners experience distrust, internal injustice and a depressing daily life, because they do not get help and care. There is no care in the Correctional Services and prison is only a criminal retention institution. Some, in these systems, use their power and treat inmates in ways that contribute to the experience of enhanced punishment for the inmates (…) I have lost my freedom; I am incarcerated and cannot go where and when I want. This is what we in Norway refer to as deprivation of liberty and it is the punishment our society wants to inflict on criminals.
According to Fredrik, the attempt to humanize punishment, through raising material standards and making prisons more luxurious, can for some inmates be perceived as a reinforcement of imprisonment, because it reminds them of the ordinary life outside of which they are deprived through isolation, loss of time and of liberty. All these aspects help to reinforce the perception of punishment as painful, and incarceration as the expression of an extreme deprivation of liberty, reinforced by monitoring and control in maintaining spaces of incarceration.
Fredrik is concerned that punishment is not only deprivation of liberty in a measured period, coupled with certain security routines. He was also concerned about how the
The prison machinery consists of various action forces, which enter into play in human encounters, unforeseen situations and in the execution of the penalty. All these contribute to open or closed spaces for incarceration and initiate ever new processes of becoming. When the prison machineries, with all their assemblies, flow together and pervade prison life, it affects and invades the prisoners’ bodies and minds. Fredrik gives vivid descriptions of how the disciplinary action forces are put into play in the spaces between human and non-human materiality and turn penalty into a constant painful process of becoming. In other words, the inmates’ bodies are monitored through a larger prison machinery and initiated by strong throughputs which are expressed both verbally, emotionally and affectively. Each machinery negotiates as to which action forces have strength enough to influence punishment, as well as which new processes of becoming the machinery is able to produce (Deleuze & Guattari,
Fredrik’s meeting with prison machinery has activated a pain which has reinforced his overall feelings of incarceration.
Fredrik’s experiences show that the most
Fredrik also fears that the high material standard and prison comfort, which is visible externally, helps to conceal the
The concept of humane penalties seems, in many ways to reflect the conditions desired in a prison, but which do not necessarily coincide with the reality of prison life. Fredrik often talked about punishment as an
After doing fieldwork in the high security prison over a period of four years, it seems that the procedures relating to the execution of sentences have become stricter. There are also indications that prisoners’
There are also strong indications that we will still have many rewritings of Norwegian prison practice and modern methods of punishment, which try to move us away from the idea of imprisonment as
This article has tried to transcend the traditional understanding of punishment as prevention and retribution.
To apply Deleuze’s thinking in an ethnographic prison study has opened up new ways of approaching punishment. Deleuze’s approach to concepts such as human and non-human materiality, the decentralized subject and the process of becoming, have also opened a new analytical door to understanding which action forces are in motion in prison machinery, and how bodies affect each other (Colebrook,
Since prisoners will always be exposed to new processes of becoming, through interactions, material structures and the environment in prisons, ideals relating to humane incarceration and the impact of punishment must constantly be subjected to reassessment and critical research.
Fredrik gave me access to his diary, personal stories written during different periods of the atonement process, personal letters and various correspondence between him and the Correctional Service in connection with his atonement.
The ethnographic fieldwork (Kvale
Cf. diary notes and texts from the whole atonement process from remanding to the high-security prison.
Cf. absolute and relative punishment theories (Hauge, 1996).
We have often discussed this, on the basis of newspaper articles and feature articles.
Home, and the way a person lives, is influenced by choices connected to identity. At the same time, where one lives and how one lives generate different challenges and possibilities. This study focuses on place-attachment and the role that the home plays when serving a sentence involving home detention with Electronic Monitoring (EM).
There is a connection between the way people live their lives and the place in which they live. This relationship can be stronger or weaker depending on identity and life phase. This
In this article I try to identify the connection between the home and the lives of five offenders who were interviewed about life during home detention with EM. My findings show that the home and different living patterns do matter and affect the execution of the sentence. Home and lifestyle provide different levels of predictability and flexibility. The location of the house in relation to work, friends, and leisure activities was found to be crucial in the planning and implementation of activities.
The findings identify the need for a closer inspection of the interaction between home, work, and leisure time when facilitating EM.
In the Scandinavian model, participants serve their sentence on EM as an alternative to short prison sentences or as the final part of a longer sentence in prison. In Norway, the average period of EM is 30 days. The Regulations to the Execution of Sentences Act is the basis for these initatives
For EM to be granted, Norwegian rules require a physically delimited space with access to kitchen and bathroom. If the offender is living together with others, the relationship must be expected to be stable during the period of the sentence, and the cohabitants have to accept the restrictions and imposed conditions. If necessary, the probation office can assist in finding a suitable place to live during EM. Housing standards alone are, in themselves, no reason to prevent an applicant from serving with EM. However, since the size and the quailty of the residence can be a deciding factor, it may be argued that this can result in an unfair differentiation.
I had some problems recruiting participants for this study. In the begining, I had ten offenders recruited from the probation office who were all interested in participating. As a result of short sentences and the approaching Christmas holiday, I was not able to meet with all of them before their release. Some, who had originally agreed, canceled their appointments on being released.
The purpose and method of the study was explained to each participant and they were informed as to how the information they gave would be used. This information was also reported to the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD).
The data for this study was gathered through an explorative interview with offenders on EM, a focus group of employees and background material from a previous comparative study of user experiences with EM, and in low-security prisons (KRUS,
The participant: Family situation, employment, spare time activities, extracurricular schooling, job and leisure activities. I did not ask about the crime committed.
Life before the sentence: Preparing for the execution of the sentence.
The execution of the sentence. The participants were asked to draw a time line representing an ordinary day, and describe the activities during that day.
Time 07:00–08:30 16:00–22:00 22:00–07:00 Morning rituals Dinner Sleep/night
Thoughts regarding life after the sentence.
In the second part of the interview, the participants were invited to comment on a list of everyday activities in the home and rank them. They were also asked to specify the time spent on activities as: unchanged, increased or decreased during EM.
I also used background information from a previous study on user experiences (KRUS,
The results from the interviews were imported into NVivo 11
I managed to complete interviews with five participants on EM. Participants A, B, and E lived with friends or a spouse. Participant C lived in a flat rented from his employer and was close to his place of work. Participant D lived in a separate apartment in an after-care institution. All, except participant E, worked shifts.
All participants were around 30 years old and lived in or just outside the city. C and D lived outside the city. They both lived in the area in which they grew up, and also had more contact with their families than the other participants in the group. Participants A, B, and E lived in the city. The first two were less established and more in a transition phase. They both lived with friends from work, and both were looking for other work and somewhere else to live. Participant A lived in a house that was inherited from the grandmother of a cohabitant. The old curtains were still there, as were the original furniture and the books on the shelves. He was just passing through. Participant B had moved in with old friends after studying abroad. The apartment was newly renovated, and the owner planned to put it on the market soon. E lived in the center of town, surrounded by shops and cultural life. The apartment was sophisticated with a designer interior.
The word cloud (
Work and transportation to and from work are important for all participants on EM. Access to a garage for the car, a short walking distance to the metro station, and a direct bus to work are essential for organizing the day and keeping up with the schedule. This was especially important for those who were working shifts and were traveling to and from work at different times each day. Preparation for Christmas was also a topic for all. How to buy presents, food, and visit family within the time allocated, was a challenge.
Both participants C and E had only a short distance to work, and could walk there. One lived close to work in an apartment rented from his empoyer. All the neighbors were also colleagues, but most of them worked shifts. His route to work took him past an “open all hours” shop where he could buy food on his way home. Participant E had a job found for her by the probation office. Her workplace was close to where she lived and she passed a wide range of shops on her way home. She worked ordinary hours, but the length of her working day varied with the needs of the employer. This variation gave her the flexibility to do all her shopping on the way home from work.
Four out of five had the opportunity to eat their main meals at work and take food home after work. The last one did his shopping at the local fuel station on his way home from work. The Christmas season was coming up when I did my interviews, and both participants B and D had food delivered to their home. They had also bought Christmas presents by mail-order. The possibility of using these services enabled an amount of flexibility and made planning simpler. This applied to those who lived both inside and outside the city.
A common challenge was getting laundry done. None had facilities for washing and drying clothes in their apartment. This meant that they had to use some of their leave
When in need of leaving the apartment or EM zone outside of agreed times, the participants could telephone the EM control center to apply for permission. The use of this routine varied between the participants. One utilized this possibility to use the laundry room in the basement of the house. Another had to call to get permission to open the front door to visitors. Participant E used this option in a more specific situation, as when her grandmother came to visit and was in need of help to manage the stairs.
Living close to the family was important for the participants, and except for one, all met their family outside their apartment, not at home. Participant E had a visit from her grandmother during the sentence and needed to phone the EM office for extra leave to help the old lady up and down the stairs. All of them had close contact with family on the phone.
The range of services included in the home also seemed important. Several of the participants used their time on leave to do the washing. Three of the participants could not open the front door of the building without calling the EM office to get permission to go out of the control zone to unlock the door.
The location of the apartment in relation to work, transportation, and friends seemed to be important to all who participated in this study. Participant A argued that, “The most important thing for me is the parking garage next door, and the metro that runs nearby. That means that I can get to work quicky and punctually”. Participant B lived close to the metro taking him straight to his job. It was fast and reliable. Participant D had just got his driver’s license back and parked his car by the front door. All three emphasized how important location was in calculating transportation time, especially when working different hours.
Most participants reported only small changes in their lives before and after EM. One responded positively to the ban on drinking during EM, and wanted to continue with non-alcoholic alternatives afterwards. Almost all responded that they slept more, especially when doing afternoon shiftwork. One of the participants commented that it was more demanding being at home in the daytime when everybody else was working.
None of the participants had made any plans for how to use the extra time at home during EM. They all managed as they went along. For most of them this resulted in more sleeping, more television and more gaming. Attempts to start redecorating the apartment or other projects failed due to lack of planning or preparation. One had started to repair his computer and had reduced it to its component parts. The computer was in the same condition when I interviewed him on his release date. Another had found a new interest during EM, listening to podcasts on his cell phone. This was a new form of entertainment for him that he wanted to continue.
Lack of physical exercise and that they missed friends were two negative factors for the participants. None of them did any organized exercise, but all missed being active, either in a gym or outdoors. Two mentioned that it was paradoxical that they were excluded from exercise and activities with friends, since they saw them as a positive part of everyday life. Few had visitors during their time on EM, besides cohabitants. Participant C lived outside the city but did his socializing at a football supporters’ club in the city. He wanted to use all his leave being together with his friends, and had a supporters’ banner up on the wall to emphasize his sense of belonging to this group.
Two participants also expressed some ambivalence regarding friends and social arenas. Both participant A and E experienced being inaccessible to unwanted previous social arenas as positive. The ban on alcohol was seen as especially positive. Both had a mixture of friends from work and outside work, and used EM as an excuse to withdraw from social events where alcohol played a central part. This can also be seen in relation to the increased pressure to drink due to the Christmas season. For two others, C and D, this topic felt different. C had his social milieu far from his apartment and felt isolated and lonely. His friends in the supporters’ club held their meetings in a bar in town. The problem was not the absence of drinking, but the difficulty of calculating how much time he could use on this kind of unstructured activity. Participant D lived in an institution where the inhabitants used to meet for meals and social arrangements twice a week. While having the opportunity to use time on leave to attend this social arena, he preferred to use the time differently. Participating in these social arrangements would use up all his leave. He therefore preferred that the other residents came to him afterwards with leftover food.
One of the participants used social media to keep in contact with colleagues when he was not at work. He would have used this method anyhow as part of his leadership duties connected to his job. None of the participants reported that they used social media more often as a result of EM.
None of the participants indicated that EM had any negative influences on their dwelling or perception of the home itself. What is interesting, however, is the effect the apartment and the participant’s living conditions had on the punishment itself. What is the element of punishment in home detention with Electronic Monitoring? Should EM be viewed as having two separate parts: being detained in one’s own home and being electronically supervised? Or should they be viewed as two interdependent elements? In a previous survey on user experience with EM (KRUS,
The purpose of a prison sentence is primarily to inflict pain through the restriction of liberty
In her Ph.D. thesis, Åshild Lappegard Hauge shows how our homes are a part of our identity, especially for young people (2009). She found that housing is an important way of projecting oneself in an individualized society. Being an indication of identity, the home can say something about personality, taste, interests, life phase, social status and relationships. Privacy and the way we think about home are also a result of historical and cultural conditions (Ball and Lilly,
There was a difference between those who were “on their way”, i.e. those preparing to move on to a new apartment or a new place after EM, and those who had settled down. Those living together with friends were more focused on the practical aspects of their living conditions: access to the car, the preciseness of transportation, distance to work. Those living alone talked more about social aspects, missing friends or problems visiting family during Christmas.
The distinction between practical orientation and social identity is one way of analyzing differences in the responses of the participants. Another may be the regulation of punitive sanctions as a result of the sentence. The internal or external controls in applying the rules and regulations can be looked upon as the ability to plan versus obeying the rules.
We can draw a distinction between practical and social activities when on EM. Practical activities are easier to plan and execute. This concerns transport to work, shopping, laundry and so on. Social activities, however, involve interaction with other humans which in turn results in unpredictability. Colleagues, friends and family may be included in the plans, but are neither controlled nor bound by the offenders’ agreements.
The distinction between planning and control can be seen in how the offenders impose the punishment on themselves. In a comparison between EM and prison, Payne and Gainly (
Careful planning allows the participants to retain some contol over their lives. Planning seems to be easier regarding work and shopping etc. than keeping in contact with friends and family. In the interviews, planning focused mainly on transportation to and from work, shopping, laundry and other practical tasks. Social contact is more diffuse, harder to calculate and more dependent on the location.
Using this model I can determine if the place of living is elastic enough to meet both the need for activities and for control. This elasticity requires both flexibility for activities and stability for planning. Elasticity is a concept related to the home and incorporates the identity and the functions that make it a home, as well as providing the stability and a framework that make planning and control possible.
Another important variable is the life phase of the participant. Being “on the move” reduces the need for planning ahead, because a continuing everyday structure is not an obstacle. On the other hand, stability allows more room for practical and social activities. Some participants are better suited to EM than others. Some maintain “business as usual” where others have problems adapting to all the rules and regulations. The elasticity of the home is one part of this.
The term elasticity refers to different aspects of the home itself and the task of organizing an ordinary day. These factors can be the house or apartment itself (spaciousness, interior, facilities and equipment, access to restricted outdoor areas, garage, etc.). It also includes location (sunlight, pollution, neighbours, status), and position in relation to transport to work, shops, meetings at the probation office, friends, family and cohabitants (spouse, children, friends). Both the home and consideration for daily routines were prerequisites to serving a sentence with EM. Some houses and structures are better suited to EM, or at least make it easier to meet the necessary requirements.
One finding from the interviews is the benefit of catering or home delivery of food etc. This reduces the need for planning and supports elasticity. Home delivery made it possible for participant B to do his Christmas shopping without leaving the house. The expansion of new home delivery services supports elasticity during home detention. The same participant also used his computer and phone to follow up his work from home. This gives more flexibility in the relationship between home and work during the sentence. None of the participants increased their use of telephone or social media in order to follow up on friends or social contacts.
In Norway, five percent of all participants on EM breach the conditions applied and are transferred to prison (Rasmussen, 2015). Most of the breaches related to the ban on alcohol consumption. Very few offenders are transferred to prison after breaching other conditions. However, probation staff working with EM mention that approximately 10 percent of the participants in the focus group “stretched the rules”. The participants in the interviews seemed to regulate contact with the EM team differently. One had to call the EM team to seek permission to leave the apartment in order to open the front door of the building to admit me. Most participants said that they had to call the EM team to get permission to fix small things outside the apartment. 80 percent of all participants on EM in 2009 were satisfied with the way EM staff understood their situation. The corresponding figures in prison were 22 percent (KRUS,
It can be argued that lack of elasticty can be compensated for by the way the offender and EM staff together can customize the conditions individually. EM staff mention the necessity for extra flexibility where offenders have cohabitants with special needs. In such cases it must be possible to change plans on short notice.
EM regulates the practical but not the social areas of the offender’s life. But it is difficult to see how social needs could be managed better through regulation and planning alone. In a critique of the ethical aspects of EM, William Bülow (
Correctional practice in Norway is based on the principle of normality, meaning that no one shall serve their sentence under a stricter regime than is necessary for the safety of society. The punishment implies a restriction of liberty, but not depriving the offender of other rights accorded to other citizens. The objective difference from prison is that the offenders remain at home and in employment, but are also responsible for following the rules and accepting the control measures imposed. A more subjective difference is that offenders themselves participate in planning these measures. All participants in EM have an individual schedule with pre-determined times when they should be at home, at work or participating in free-time activities (five hours). 60 percent of all those on EM in 2009 reported that they had personal contact with someone in the EM team. Only 14 percent of those serving in a low-security prison reported the same (KRUS,
In the article, “The Pains of Electronic Monitoring”, Payne and Gainey (
Inclusion in EM involves having time at home and at work regulated by others. Leisure time outside of the home is also restricted. The Norwegian rules permit up to five hours a week for activities outside of the home other than work. Most participants in the interviews used this time for shopping and laundry. In the interviews, participants expressed loneliness resulting from not being able to participate in social activities with friends.
There is a connection between the three parts of everyday life: work, activities at home and leisure time. The relative importance of each area, and the interaction between them, differ for individuals and different life phases. Lack of leisure time was seen to reduce contact with both friends and colleagues who continued socializing after work.
All of the participants’ dwellings were within easy traveling distance to their work and everyday shopping needs. This was also an aspect that was discussed and planned for together with the EM team, both before and during the period of the sentence. The real challenges were planning social activities and leisure time.
I have used the term elasticity as a tool to identify the forms of relationship between home, work and leisure activities. The relative importance of these differs according to the indivdual’s identity and life phase. For some, and in some phases of life, the home arena is more important, but this does not apply to all. By temporarily turning the home into a prison, EM affects the offender’s relationship to work and leisure activities.
None of the offenders interviewed felt that the home had been turned into a prison, but they used their homes differently because they were not allowed to leave unless they planned to do so in advance. The restriction also limited leisure activities. Work is given priority to ensure that the participant continues working, and thereby secures an income. The logistical planning of the day focused on the work situation, while leasure activities were given a lower priority. This is justfied by viewing this as the “pain aspect”, that the offender is expected to suffer as part of the sentence.
The participants spent more time at home than before, but none of them used the time to invite friends to visit, to redecorate or take on a new hobby. Those living with others already had a structure of cooperation at home. This support related mostly to practical matters. More focus on the home and the participants’ use of leisure time allow a more personalized way of serving a sentence with EM. The home should be seen as an essential, integral part of life, but the home does not adapt as quickly to changes as other aspects of life do.
I found that none of the participants on EM had prepared themselves for serving their sentences at home. This resulted in them not being prepared for what was to come, and had no plans for how to cope with the challenges ahead. My findings indicate that this lack of planning affects the way participants made use of their domestic arena apart from being a place to exist between work shifts. This lack of planning highlights the problems of taking control of one’s life. A central goal for the Correctional Service is to assist offenders in taking control of their own lives, which in turn is seen as an essential element in preventing criminal activity.
EM is regarded as a judicial reaction which supports normalization and reduces the harm of incarceration. As mentioned, a prison sentence including EM involves the deprivation of liberty, which also often results in a deprivation of autonomy. Using a term like elasticity to give attention to planning everyday life, supports new solutions that facilitate leisure and social activities.
When offenders are not allowed to leave home, they can lose positive social contacts. The home as an arena for social interaction can be seen as a hub from which other forms of social intercourse radiate. This is of benefit to the offender, and at the same time fulfills the purpose of the punishment.
Regulations to the Execution of Sentences Act. (For prison and probation combined, i.e. The Correctional Service.)
The corresponding figure in prison was 60 percent (KRUS,
Data analysis software for qualitative research provided by QSR International Pty. Ltd.
“Leave” here means time allocated for free-time activities.
In comparison, 60 percent felt it was demanding to serve in low-security prison (KRUS,
In Norway a prison sentence is defined as the deprivation of liberty, no other rights being removed by the sentencing court. The sentenced offender retains the same rights as all others who live in Norway (available at
This article explains the development of the topographic turn, new-materialism and the human turn in sociology and philosophy. Key concepts are the spatial turn and sociomateriality.
In “the new” we find traces of “the old”. Thus the introductory section,
In
Ideological and economic limits affect prison design, material structures and ways of functioning. The Norwegian correctional system uses the concepts “humanism” and “normalization”. What do they mean? I continue my criticism in
Finally, in
The Swedish sociologist Gert Nilsson cites the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre: “Man is a product of his own creation”. Nilsson continues: “Human relationships do not exist in a vacuum; on the contrary, human relationships are anchored in the material world, primarily in processed matter: houses, tools, furniture, books, television sets, and roads. Practical objects or things of all kinds,
Twenty-five years later, Lene Tanggaard and Svend Brinkmann (2010:1), in their introduction to a special publication on materiality and topographic inversion state: “In recent years, social scientists have begun to refer to what they call a ‘spatial turn’ or a ‘topographic inversion’, neo-materialism, and generally we see a reorientation towards objects, space, bodies, movement, materiality and architecture”. They continue: “The material world and its objects are no longer seen simply as a result of human social practice, but are seen themselves as actively creative in the process”.
After three decades dominated by individualism, idealism, cognitivism, postmodernism, constructivism and symbolic interactionism there is a new tendency: The materialistic way of thinking is strengthened - referred to as ‘the material turn’, ‘body materialism’, ’postmaterialism’ or ‘neo-materialism’. In addition, other ‘turns’ are gaining acceptance: the topographic turn, the spatial turn, thing power, post-humanism, and the linguistic transformation. But are these new concepts - or just a wave of neologisms?
In this article, I will first present
Following this are some ideas on ‘neo-materialism’, ‘the topographical’ and ‘the spatial turn’ as possible analytical and theoretical views of the current mission-statement of the Norwegian prison system. Beginning with an explanatory section,
Historically, the contradiction between idealism and materialism has been intense. But what about ‘neo-materialism’, ‘material turn’, ‘spatial-philosophy’, ‘spatial-sociology’, ‘spatial turn’ or ‘the topographic turn’? Some words and phrases are often used indiscriminately, or are influenced by fashion, and become inaccurate jargon. Can “
In space philosophy and space sociology, ‘space’ has different definitions. Space physics and metaphysics, space phenomenology and spatial aesthetics are common expressions but we are concerned with social space, symbolic space, and linguistic space. In the present economic, military, political, technological and climatic terminology,
Several philosophers and sociologists (particularly within phenomenology and Marxism) have worked meticulously with the
My philosophical and theoretical foundation is Activity theory, Critical psychology, phenomenology and existential philosophy. With this approach, materiality, lifestyles, topography, location, time, activity, artifacts and everyday sociology become essential components of my analysis. Just as essential are the spatial-sociological, spatial-philosophical and situational-philosophical perspectives. Since 1970, I have worked considerably with these subjects and with everyday philosophy and everyday sociology.
A social structure is almost always a socio-material structure where people construct and develop social phenomena through social practice, and where nature, landscape, the man-made world, historical development and social life mix with, and mutually reinforce each other. In my work related to suicide, violence and prison research, I have used the expression ‘society and the everyday production of suffering’. This term highlights the specific conditions of life, the socio-material conditions, everyday demands and production of misery, that are central components of my analysis. I also question which human values, ideology, ethics, aesthetics, theory, method and practice are reflected in the topography, spatial awareness, materiality, business and socio-material practices. Further, what is the meaning and significance of social space, its content and form, and how is the “inhabited” space used collectively and individually in relation to local requirements and historical development?
In ‘the new’ we find traces of ‘the old’. Almost forgotten, is a classical Marxist and sociological study of the everyday life of the proletariat, depicting how life unfolds socially, materially and structurally in oppressive material surroundings. I am referring to Friedrich Engels’ book about London’s impoverished areas
The Norwegian philosopher and sociologist Dag Østerberg refers in his book
The Marxist philosopher, Henri Lefebvre writes that space is not just an isolated entity, but consists of relationships between entities. According to him, space is part of a social practice which he understands both as symbolic and imaginary. He promotes a dialectical materialist view of man, in which man is seen as an active being creating himself and his immediate environment in close relationship to his wider surroundings. For Lefebvre Marx’s concept of pratice is therefore fundamental to human creative and liberating development: The ‘body’ and ‘space’ are subject to capital, power and state domination and forms of expression. Liberation from oppression, alienation and the development of ideology in daily life and ‘space’ are key issues for him. In the analysis of a spatial dialectic, he refers to the importance of different socio-material dimensions of things, structures, cultural practices and economic processes. In that sense he represents, both theoretically and practically, a Marxist humanism that takes into consideration the whole person, who is to be freed from alienation, social and economic oppression. Based on this understanding, he distinguishes between
Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s corporeality philosophy expands the human body’s relationship to space. However, this is different for ‘objects’: “It is through the body that we are present in the world, communicate, are in contact with objects and so on.” Thus, continues Merleau-Ponty, “One cannot say that our body exists in social space that only exists in time.” (Merleau-Ponty,
The philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu advocates understanding
For Bordieu, all fields are structured by degrees of power and interests. A field is a restricted area characterized by specific objective structures that are relatively independent of other social fields. However, between the individual fields there may exist internal relationships, because they are located within a larger social space consisting of coexisting social roles played by other persons. According to Bourdieu, social space is an invisible reality, which one can neither touch nor see - but which organizes the person’s practices and behavior. The social positions within the social space depict the material conditions for existence and are characterized as much by economic as by cultural resources. Apart from the social space, he also refers to a number of other different spaces: practical space, symbolic space, physical space, geographical space, male and female space.
The sociologist Anthony Giddens (
For Giddens, structure can create opportunity but also limit possibilities. The actions, which
Martina Löw’s sociology of space has received considerable attention. She has developed a procedural and relativistic spatial understanding, which transcends the distinction between social and material space (Löw,
Within
But how are the surroundings and social spaces
Space must be studied from both the ethical and aesthetic perspective. The material world around specific locations and social space is not always a positive experience. A space can also awaken feelings of alienation, threats and sickening sensations – as experienced by the protagonist Rouquentin in Sartre’s philosophical novel
In connection with a research assignment I had in a new and internationally renowned prison, (which has also received interior design awards), a prisoner accosted me. He showed me his cell and said, “Look here, the cell window has no bars, and that’s good. But the view? When I look out the window, I see two things: a grey wall covering 2/3 of the window surface and some fir trees sticking up behind it. That’s all. It makes me depressed not to see anything else”. For him, life in the cell was oppressive, threatening and crushing because a cell window without bars, and the prison topography otherwise, engendered other expectations. “The room darkened like a tomb,” wrote the Norwegian author Arne Garborg (his metaphor became a reality for 69 Norwegian prisoners who committed suicide in prison space in the years 2000–2015 (Hammerlin,
The structural organization of prison space is the product of a past, a present and a future. The physical form of a high-security prison is universal, where ‘layer upon layer’ of closed spaces and stringent regulations form the environment in which prisoners must exist and to which they must relate. Stringent regulations and security measures determine how the material, the architecture and the interior of the prison space are organized. Outdoor areas are to be seen as outer ‘prison spaces’. How is power and ideology expressed in the material conditions, the architecture and the interior? And how is materiality, the architecture and the interior expressed
Many of today’s Norwegian prisons are old and are shaped according to prison ideology, culture and topography from days gone by. In 2012 one of the prisons still in operation in Norway had been built in 1820, and 15 more were built in the latter half of the 1800s. In addition, six prisons date from between 1902–1920, and five more were built before or during World War II. Seven prisons were built in the 1950s, seven in the 1960s, six in the 1970s, two in the 1980s, three in the 1990s and one after 2010 (White Paper/Meld.St.12/2014–2015:23). Topographically there are significant differences - not least in relation to the local community. Most prisons are found within, or close to, urban areas. Others are relatively isolated and are found in rural areas with forests or farmland between them and the nearest built up area. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were a number of different categories of prison: national prisons, security institutions, local prisons, labour and forest camps, halfway houses, day release homes, and auxiliary prisons. Some institutions are large, others small - some are closed, others open. In the early 2000s, the categorization was simplified and prisons are now simply designated as being of high or lower security (
From the 1950s and up to the present, criticism of material conditions in prisons has been based on economic issues, current correctional theory, health or ethical grounds. This also applies to debates from the interwar period and earlier on what imprisonment should entail for the prisoner. In the 1970s, a number of suggestions emphasized that revised qualitative changes were essential in order to achieve a modern and humane treatment of prisoners (Hammerlin,
Relations with the outside world, the local environment and the professional community were important. The ideal goal was then, as now, that prisons should be designed in accordance with modern penal policies, allowing unimpeded imported professional services to be performed. However, these standards are incessantly and contentiously discussed in the mass media: How “comfortable” should the new prisons be? A common (mis-)conception is that new prisons resemble hotels with their concomitant luxury and comfort. This is contrary to the generally accepted sense of justice and the idea of what prison life should be like. The counter-argument uses the ‘normality principle’ and the ethical requirements for humane and constructive prison conditions. At the same time, consideration has to be given to the need to build state institutions in accordance with prevailing civil engineering and architectural principles. Academic correctional theory highlights the difficulty in implementing modern treatment of prisoners within the ‘old’ material and ideological frameworks. Security requirements must be clearly defined and expressed unequivocally politically, in public documents, and in targeting strategies formulated in the Ministry of Justice. In Norway, we find prisons that represent extremes, but also permit
Firstly, it is typified by (i) a
Secondly, the system has, at its core, a (ii)
During the 1980s and 1990s, (iii) an ideology of economic and instrumental rationality gained a strong foothold. This ideology is typified by: Centralist bureaucracism, management inspired ideas (NPM/neoliberalism), economism with strict financial constraints producing an effective control of the use of resources, activities and practices. The Competition State challenges the Welfare State! Seen thus, the gap in this ideological dichotomy is expanded (i and ii) to become a three-way conflict (i,ii,iii) reflecting tension and antagonism between different ideologies, humaneness, ethics, requirement structures, objectives and practices in the treatment of prisoners.
In Lefebvre’s terminology (Lefebvre,
A prison is a contrastful and distrusting system. It is expressed by the prison system’s topography, architecture, interior, walls, spaces and security measures - and by its regulations, control and restrictive practices. Modern, closed prisons with a high security level have a high standard of material structure that is aesthetically pleasing and practical. There are also open prisons that are hardly recognizable as prison institutions. Notwithstanding this, the basic functions have not changed and the regulation-steered, coercive basis is the same for all prisons. In some prison research, the institution-sociological power analysis seems diluted, and the negative effects of incarceration are downplayed. One often finds studies that skip lightly over the repressive and totalitarian power structures, and which fail to reveal tensions between conflicting ideologies, prisoners and human values. In keeping with a “fashionable” and a fragmentary use of Michel Foucault’s understanding of power, the real application of power in prisons is not revealed (Hammerlin,
The state of “
“We must understand what we are doing – it is an essential requirement,” said the former Minister of Justice Knut Storberget (Hammerlin,
I consider “the human turn” as a generic expression, or framework, for these and other previously mentioned “turns”. Firstly, the relationship between individuals and the world surrounding them is undergoing continuous change. The human aspect is therefore also
Activity theory and critical psychology have made great strides in dialectic analysis. The inner dialectical relationship between the creative human and the natural, man-made material and social conditions - both historically and situationally related – is, within these theories, to be understood in an overriding, dynamic and comprehensive manner. Lefebvre’s “spatial dialectic” and his distinction between
Further, the consequences of alienating materiality and the social space in prison highlight a further development and concretization of Marx, Sartre and Lefebvre’s understanding of ontological and existential alienation. Lefebrvre’s understanding of the space dialectic between reification, alienation and emancipation should help to support criticism of the suffering resulting from imprisonment and pain inducement - both intended and unintended (ref. Hammerlin’s
“Words can become so great that they frighten,” writes the Danish historian of ideas Hans-Jørgen Schanz (
In a number of my earlier works I have argued, from philosophical and ethical viewpoints, that the Service cannot claim that it is based on humanism.
A prerequisite of the humanistic view of humanity is the acceptance that “all men and women are equal” (no individual is worth more than another) - that each have their own intrinsic value, are independent and creative, and shall have the
Expressing ideal notions of human dignity, the prison system desires to create humane, dignified conditions for prisoners - to facilitate these in the most humane way possible and under the least torturous conditions in a totalitarian penal system, which is obviously a proud and worthy ambition. To claim that the prison system’s fundamental ideology is humanistic is one thing, but putting this into practice requires a different set of values and quality requirements. The Danish professor of philosophy, Uffe Juul Jensen, supported my criticism as follows: There is a “sort of contradiction in that the means to achieve a more ‘humanistic practice’ are present, but they shift the perspective from the primary goal, namely,
The question arises, however, whether positive intentions restricted by limited initiatives and activities, are sufficient to warrant the description:
My historical and topographical studies of the treatment of prisoners have shown that there are numerous technocratic views of humanity. This, combined with the precedence given to the needs of the institution itself, have dominated many of the measures. Of course, this does not mean that technocracy excludes the possibility of a humanitarian basis. All too often, however, the individual is reduced to an object or an objectified subject by various initiatives and academic interventions. Materials, architecture and interiors can lay the groundwork for a number of positive measures in specially adapted spaces even in the most compact totalitarian prison systems. Meanwhile, small open prisons with liberal regimes often develop an institutional character which permits various positive activities that are dominant and related to the local environment.
Normalization and the normality principle have been especially important concepts for correctional and rehabilitation ideology in the Nordic countries, but these definitions are unclear. Is it the prisoner, or is it prison conditions that have to be normalized? Normalization of prison conditions means here
In Norway it has historically, as mentioned earlier, been an institutional objective to ‘normalize’ the prisoner’s mind-set by various methods of influence (especially cognitive) (Hammerlin,
Some high security prisons have also created similar departments with material, architectural and interior conditions, which aim to reduce the institutional atmosphere. Halden Prison (opened in 2010) is (along with Bastøy, Hassel, Ila and Bredtveit prison) a prison that has received considerable international attention. The prison’s Governor, Are Høidal, insists that the idea of a high security prison, which is humane, normalized and creative, is achievable. However, despite the intention of normalized social and material conditions, and a management and staff with humanitarian ideals, such intentions are hampered by strict political, economic, and centrally directed, rigorous security requirements. The modern prison’s material structure and interior shows that
A prison may, in the purest essential form, be referred to as a social field, a socio-material arena and a ‘social space’ of
Prison architecture is deeply connected to ideology and the aims of punishment, and in this last section of the book we offer various contributions going deeper into these connections, from different disciplinary positions with examples from both Italian and Norwegian society. The section starts with “Penal Ideology and Prison Architecture”,
The title of
The last chapter “The Prison Beyond Its Theory. Between Michel Foucault’s Militancy and Thought” focuses on ideology from a theoretical point of view, discussing Michel Foucault’s militancy and ideas, and how these endeavors were intertwined in Foucault’s engagement in academia and in politics. The article brings us back to Antonio Gramsci and John K.’s text, which remind us of the importance of listening to the prisoner’s experience and perspectives.
This article concerns the relationship between prison architecture and criminal justice ideology. By studying the architecture of a specific prison, we can learn much about the ideologies at the time the prison was built. In this article, the architecture and ideologies of four Norwegian prisons – Oslo Prison (1851), Ullersmo Prison (1970), Bergen Prison (1990) and Halden Prison (2010) – are described and discussed. These prisons reveal the development from a pan-optic jail, with a belief in isolation, to a “luxury” prison with a focus on civil and human rights, rehabilitation and electronic control. Although these prisons illustrate different time-typical views on criminal justice, they all illustrate the complex relationship between architecture and ideology. On this basis, the article eventually reflects upon tendencies in contemporary and future prison architecture.
“Architecture and ideology go hand in hand,” wrote Director General Øivind Christoffersen in Statsbygg
Prison design has varied over time mirroring, to a great degree, prevailing ideologies of punishment. When corporal punishment was the primary aim, prisons were mostly built as workhouses and disciplinary institutions where forced labour was performed. Another type of prison design was used when the notions of penance and isolation came into fashion.
In this article, we will look at the relationship between prison architecture and ideology.
We will link our discussion to four different Norwegian prisons. These are Oslo Prison (1851), Ullersmo Prison (1970), Bergen Prison (1990) and Halden Prison (2010).
We have selected these prisons because they represent four period-typical approaches to the relationship between architecture and criminal justice ideology. On the basis of a closer look at these prisons, we will eventually identify certain period tendencies, and reflect upon contemporary and future prison architecture.
Prison construction is affected by several ideologies. The most important of these being the ideologies related to the aim and justification of punishment.
The Norwegian criminal justice system adheres to several different ideological views of punishment.
In Norwegian criminal law it has been common to emphasize crime prevention as the aim of punishment, with a focus on individual and general deterrence. This is particularly emphasized in the preparatory document to the present Penal Code.
However, it may be contested that prevention really is the prime motive for punishing. The criminal justice system, in a historical perspective, is seen to be built on the idea of guilt, blameworthiness and deserved punishment. This becomes obvious in the tenets that only the guilty shall be punished, and that the severity of the punishment shall correspond to the seriousness of the offence.
Regardless of how the aim of punishment is perceived, this aim stands in a complex relationship to prison architecture. The idea that punishment should serve as a deterrent can, for instance, lead to the conclusion that imprisonment should be made as uncomfortable as possible. However, this idea can also lead to constructive rehabilitation initiatives as an integral part of the sentence.
How the stated objectives of punishment are set out in practice depends upon the current constitutional principles concerning respect for the individual.
In addition, there is also a particular “ideology of the execution of sentences”. Attention to safety is here paramount and is affected by the prison buildings – at the possible expense of the rights and belongings of the inmates.
How a prison is built is largely a result of criminal policy and society’s attitude to those who commit crimes. I am convinced that architecture has implications for how we succeed in getting offenders back into society. But prison architecture is demanding. It should create a human environment that helps people get back on track, while at the same time securing the safety of other inmates, staff and the surrounding community.
This excerpt is from an interview with former Minister of Justice, Knut Storberget on completion of Halden Prison.
Generally, buildings often also “communicate” something about themselves. Good examples of this are many churches, courthouses and universities. It is also our belief that prison architecture and criminal ideology are closely related, but we are uncertain as to the complexity of this relationship.
From an architectural perspective, however, design is rarely indifferent to the intended purpose of the building. On the contrary, the physical form of the building normally reflects its intended purpose, and builders, architects, engineers and designers have naturally taken this into consideration.
Usually, architects are aware of what they want to convey (or not convey) through the use of materials, colors, shapes and location in relation to other buildings or areas - even if these relationships are not apparent to most. The viewer may experience what they see as aesthetically pleasing, beautiful, provoking or restful, etc. The response to these impressions may be exuberance, anger or even indifference.
Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Department of Architecture and Culture, says in its concept statement: “Architecture offers a stage for human behaviour. It is both an intellectual and material practice and no matter how architecture is defined, it will continue to stage activities …”
The challenge when designing and building prisons is
As with other buildings, prisons are characterized by the ideologies current at the time of construction. By observing the prison buildings and the architectural solutions from different periods, we can see how ideas relating to punishment and types of penal reactions have changed - or remained unchanged. We can also see how architectonic ideals affected new prison constructions.
The time scale also relates to a particular challenge. Prisons are expected to have a long life, perhaps more than 100 years. How are they to be designed so that they can accommodate possible changes in ideology over time? Before we return to this question, we shall take a closer look at four time-typical prison buildings.
Botsfengslet, built in 1851, can be considered the first modern cell prison in Norway. This prison in many ways marked the end of the period where corporal punishment was the norm.
The architect, HE Schirmer, also designed Gaustad Hospital and a number of Norwegian railway stations - all in the Gothic Revival style. Outwardly, therefore, Botsfengslet was similar to other new public buildings at that time. But the interior layout was not a result of a desire for architectural beauty. Instead it primarily adhered to the detailed report from the Prison Commission of 1841 (Strafanstaltkommisionen). This report was a voluminous, 700-page document, explaining how ideas relating to punishment and sentences should govern prison design. There are indications that the architects were loyal to the ideas of the prison authorities, even though the exterior of the buildings remained in line with current architectural ideals.
Botsfengslet’s interior design was clearly inspired by the “Philadelphia System” that had been established in the United States, inspired by ideas promulgated by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The underlying ideal was (even at that time) to introduce a better and more humane method of punishment. Detention would no longer equal corporal punishment, as had been the case in penitentiaries, but would now focus on altering behavior. Religious attitudes on reform and repentance were important factors in this regard. Imprisonment was deemed to give the offender the opportunity of atonement through repentance and penitence, and finally reconciliation with God. To achieve this, loneliness and isolation were thought necessary as opposed to social interaction. With such content, prisons would no longer function as “crime schools” where inmates ‘infected’ fellow prisoners with their criminal behavior.
The architectural solutions of the prison were chosen in order to support this philosophy. The belief in total isolation manifested itself in small solitary cells and no common areas for working or association. Leisure was an unknown concept at the time, so rooms for this purpose were non-existent. There was, however, one place where the inmates were in close proximity – the church. But even this was formed as a large amphitheatre with stalls so that the inmates could neither see nor communicate with each other.
The importance of security was clearly manifested in the architecture. The prison was built with thick and high walls, and with grilles and locks. In addition, the prison was
A hundred years passed before Norway began working on plans for a new main prison, Ullersmo.
In retrospect, the proposals in the Act can be seen as surprisingly modern. Among other things, the Commission had proposed more open prisons, allowing socialization, leave opportunities, day-release, and employment within the prison including vocational training, and better aftercare.
Not all the proposals were put into practice immediately, but they affected the architectural design of Ullersmo. As with Botsfengslet, Ullersmo’s interior design is largely consistent with the government’s criminal ideology.
The building of large workshops and places for social interaction are proof that the prison authorities had left the prayer and isolation ideology – in favor of association and rehabilitation. Classic rehabilitation ideology where manual labour was the primary path, manifested itself in the construction of Ullersmo. “Work activities should be seen as an effective initiative of great educational significance.”
In contrast to earlier prisons, Ullersmo also incorporated rooms for inmates to socialize in their spare time. In addition, the prison had its own gymnasium and football field. This, it was reasoned, could ameliorate the otherwise harmful effects of incarceration. Neither the football field nor the gymnasium matched official standards, but they were there and they were used. The school, however, consisted of only a few small rooms which soon proved insufficient.
Ullersmo was built as a national prison accepting convicted persons with longer sentences. It should also accept potentially dangerous inmates, which meant that there had to be a particular emphasis on physical security measures. This is reflected in the construction of a large perimeter wall and a system of underground passages. This “culvert” system was to hinder prisoners from wandering off on their way from cells to workshops, for example.
Externally, Ullersmo reflected the prevailing architectural style of its time, in the same way that Botsfengslet reflected the trends of its time. Since the 1920s, functionalism in architecture had predominated. The guiding principle behind it was that all superfluous ornamentation and projections having no direct function should be omitted. The result was straight, clean lines – the epoch of “rosettes and stucco” was definitively over. In this perspective, Ullersmo could safely be said to be an expression of a type of neofunctionalism with right angles and flat roofs on all buildings. Birgit Cold, Professor of Architecture at Norwegian University of Science and Technology, has described the right-angled perimeter wall as “boring”.
Bergen Prison was completed in 1990. This prison distinguished itself from Botsfengslet and Ullersmo in that it did not represent a clear break with tradition. On the contrary, Bergen Prison was, in many ways, built on the same ideals of socialization and rehabilitation that had characterized Ullersmo. However, Bergen Prison was built with a specific emphasis on the dignity of the inmates. It was established that although perpetrators were sentenced to be deprived of their freedom, they were to retain other civil rights, such as the right to education and healthcare. Also more generally, a positive humanitarian attitude to inmates was highlighted as necessary.
Distinctive for Bergen Prison is the method by which these ideals are achieved. Most significant is a programmed, planned progression through the period of detention. This idea was quite similar to the class system that in 1869 was introduced in Botsfengslet when the harmful effects of isolation were recognized.
An important difference was that while the class structure was not initially planned for Botsfengslet from the start, in Bergen it was most definitely intentional – and was also reflected in the architecture. The prison was designed with four independent sections, each with its own workshops, school premises and socializing areas. The Admissions Section, A, had the strictest regime, then came Sections B and C, and finally Section D, which was open and outside of the main, secure building.
The main difference between these departments lay in the differing security regimes. Section D was the last stage before release. From here, inmates could get a day release to attend school or work. They could also be transferred to “The Island”, the Osterøy open annex.
The architecture of Bergen Prison allows inmates, during the period of their sentence, to progress from the strictest and most closed regime to the most open. The prison’s architecture acts as an agent of power and discipline. “As long as you … then you can progress to Section B or C.” This kind of power certainly exists in other prisons, but is not employed as explicitly as in Bergen.
However, the regime in Bergen has changed since its inception. The prison now refers to itself as “the interactive prison”. It lays emphasis on providing inmates with cognitive programs. It also attempts to help inmates discover their potential which may also be achieved while in prison. The prison walls here are called the “Walls of Opportunity.”
Here, the community idea from Ullersmo continued and was realized architecturally through the use of small sections with rooms for social interaction between inmates and staff. One big difference from Ullersmo is, however, that in Bergen all four Sections have their own school and workshop areas. This obviated the need to move large numbers of inmates around to get to their designated places in school or workshop.
Supporters of the so-called “normality principle” would say this was reprehensible.
After Bergen Prison was completed, two new prisons were built, in Skien, 1993, and Ringerike, 1997, both in much the same mold as Bergen Prison.
Halden, which was opened in 2010, was not primarily the result of ideological innovation, but of a need to increase prison capacity. Yet there were ideological and political elements, which highlighted the wish for longer prison sentences and thus a corresponding need for more prisons. Given the growing recognition that imprisonment rarely had the desired preventive effect, it is tempting to connect this to more absolute theories on punishment.
At the same time, the belief that the rights of the inmates should not be restricted more than necessary, as expressed in Bergen, was clearly present. More specifically, one aim was now to ensure that inmates should be subjected to humane prison conditions reflecting, as far as practically possible, society outside prison. Rehabilitation ideology had also become a more central theme. In 1998, a White Paper emphasized the importance of stimulating the prisoners’ own motivation for their rehabilitation.
The Correctional Service chose to rethink completely the ideas relating to the form and content of prisons. A basic principle applied when building Halden was that the aesthetics of people’s surroundings could have positive or negative effects. The architectural solutions were chosen with care to contribute as positively as possible to the inmates’ experience of their environment, and to reflect a humane prison environment. The first impression of Halden is a welcoming sight. Brick and wood are used where possible to replace the usual grey concrete. The prison is beautifully situated, the surrounding landscape is preserved, there are no bars on the bulletproof windows, appealing colors have been chosen and pictures are hung on the walls.
Halden abandoned the Bergen model, where everything should be found within each section of the prison. When designing Halden, the architects accepted the health and psychological benefits of “getting out” and walking to work or school - leaving “home” and going to work like other people. Halden also has various types of rooms for socializing and visits.
As with Bergen at the time, the Correctional Service dared, in building Halden, to create an aesthetically pleasing prison. Making aesthetics an important criterion meant that security initiatives had to be re-evaluated.
At the same time, the six-meter-high curtain wall around Halden Prison informs the viewer that this is a high security prison. Wherever people are likely to be found within the walls, extensive electronic monitoring with surveillance cameras is in evidence. Security measures are powerfully conspicuous, especially in the large control room where all electronic signals are collected and monitored. Can these stringent security measures contradict Halden’s claim to humanitarian ideals? With extensive electronic monitoring and control, there is at least a reduced need for control requiring interpersonal contact.
Halden has nevertheless been criticized most of all for having too high a standard of comfort and facilities compared with other prisons and comparable institutions. When it was opened, Halden was described by critical voices as being “like a luxury hotel”. The former Minister of Justice Knut Storberget responded to this criticism in an interview: “It is the restriction on liberty that is the punishment when we put people in prison. Beyond this, it is our task to enable people to rise again afterwards. Many of today’s prisons were built on the Philadelphia Model which was modern and inventive at the time. But that was more than 150 years ago! When we build a prison in 2010, we use contemporary architecture that allows the implementation of
The rebuttal largely expresses current values regarding the treatment of prison inmates, which in many ways is manifested in Halden Prison. In terms of both security and rehabilitation, Halden Prison displays the ultimate in what may be achieved within the limits necessarily imposed when executing a sentence.
What the prisons we have presented have in common is that they were created in the belief that architecture can be used as a tool to implement current penal ideologies. The ideological image is complex, but the fundamental values appear fairly stable. The golden thread that runs from Botsfengslet to Halden is the underlying belief in prevention, atonement, and “punishment that works”. The strategies to achieve these ideals have, however, varied. Moreover, the increasing focus on respect for the rights of the inmates seems to have been a significant motivator for change. We can see that inmates have gone from being regarded as having virtually no rights to retaining many of those rights and freedoms accorded those outside of prison. The recognition that inmates are sentenced to deprivation of liberty, but are not deprived of other civil rights, has led to the correctional service changing from an independent, self-contained organization to a host agency for other, external services. Within the prisons we find school rooms, libraries, medical and dental facilities, and office space for other social services
This recognition of the rights of the inmates can also be witnessed in the transition from isolation of the inmates to their social integration. From Botsfengslet to Halden, attitudes have changed radically on how prisoners should be treated, not least in the name of crime prevention. Isolation has been successively replaced by social interaction and focus on rehabilitation, concerning daily life. As punishment isolation is still used – also in Halden prison.
The increasing recognition of the rights of the inmates is also mirrored structurally in the architectural design of prisons, which if overstated can be said to have gone from “dungeons” to “luxury”.
Not surprisingly, security has, however, been an equally important consideration. Technological development, along with the drive for efficiency and economizing has doubtless made a significant contribution to changes in security strategies. It can be said that Norwegian prisons, led by Halden, has made the jump from panoptic to electronic. In the central tower at Botsfengslet one had a full overview of all floors in all wings. Here warders could see without being seen. The same is possible in modern Halden, but with the aid of technology. Here too one can see into every corner without being seen. Now it is technology that facilitates surveillance, not only architecture.
Security strategies - unlike rehabilitation strategies – are seen as very successful. It is, however, debatable as to which strategies work best and which ones should be selected in the future. Escape is a rare phenomenon and few fail to return after leave with or without escort. The idea of a prison making maximum use of electronic monitoring also appears to be quite daunting. The use of human contact and dynamic, interpersonal control as practiced thus far, is seen as something very valuable.
Either way, we can say that if there is anything that binds the prison anno 1851 with the prison anno 2010 then it must clearly be the concern for security.
There is little reason to believe that the prison sentence will be abolished in the foreseeable future. The population is increasing, also in prisons, and there is a political promise of decreasing the “prison queue”. Old prisons are being closed down. Small, low-security prisons are also being removed. This creates capacity problems, and demands the building of new prisons. Hence, there is reason to ask what kinds of prisons we are considering for tomorrow.
There are several documents and architectural drawings which tell us something about the authorities’ ideas about new prison buildings.
On the other hand, we have “Model 2015” which gives the general impression that the ambition for tomorrow’s prisons is the “flexible and effective” one.
This impression is strengthened by reading the annual state budgets over the last three years. In these budgets the correctional services are supposed to save more than 20 million NOK annually.
Furthermore, in “Model 2015” profoundly ideological considerations seem to be, to a large extent, absent. Except for security considerations, it is difficult to find deeper reflections about how a prison should be constructed in order to satisfy legal requirements regarding rehabilitation and satisfactory conditions for the inmates. It seems unclear how these important principles should be realized architecturally. Generally it seems difficult to combine an emphasis on the realization of satisfactory conditions, including imported services, with the call for the replacement of small local units with compact, cost-effective, medium-sized entities. The focus on building larger, effective, prisons is, so far, moderate in Norway in comparison to many other countries. The new Youth Units are also examples of the contrasting recognition of small prison units having resources that make it possible to achieve satisfactory prison conditions. The overall impression is, however, that arguments of efficiency are primary considerations in current criminal justice policies.
In fact, existing plans and political statements can sometimes give the impression that economic considerations are superior to all other goals – even those expressed as legal principles. The risk is that such views will increasingly justify larger prisons that leave less architectural room for upholding normality and humanity.
In addition, the discussion also seems to lack a broader perspective on the problem of prison capacity. There are many aspects to this problem that could be considered, such as the problem of “over-criminalization” and the rules and practices of custody and parole.
Historically, there has been a dialogue between architects and the criminal justice authorities. As we have seen, prisons have been built according to rigorous considerations relating to how current ideologies could be realized through the application of various architectural solutions. Such considerations seem to play a less prominent role today, and we wonder how this will affect the content of the prison sentence in those new prisons that are built as we approach the 2020s.
Our central concern is how demands for cheapness and efficiency will impact the realization of legal principles of rehabilitation and satisfactory conditions for the inmates. How will rooms for labor, activities, school, and medical services be incorporated in new prisons, when they have to compete with arguments of cost-efficiency? What kind of impact will this thrift have on sociocultural environments and relations – between inmates and prison officers and between inmates themselves?
Prisons being built today will probably be used for many years to come. While their architecture may serve today’s ideology of economics and efficiency, it may limit the extent to which tomorrow’s ideas can be achieved. We must therefore reflect wisely before we design the prison of the future. We must also keep in mind that what is argued to be best for the inmates is not always shown to be so. In 1851 the prevailing discourse was isolation, and prisons were built in accordance with this discourse – with harmful effects as a result. Today the authorities argue that effective and cheap prisons will be best
Statsbygg is the Norwegian government’s property developer.
See further Hauge R, Straffens begrunnelser, Universitetsforlaget 1996 pp. 163-164.
This is based on an earlier article by Inger Marie Fridhov, “Fengselsarkitektur og ideologi”, in Virker straff, 2012, Ståle Olsen, ed.
See Gröning, Husabø & Jacobsen, Frihet, forbrytelse og straff – En systematisk framstilling av norsk strafferett, Fagbokforlaget, 2015, pp. 52-62.
For an account of these different theoretical positions, see R.A Duff, Punishment, Communication and Community, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 3-34.
See Ot.prp. nr. 90 (
See Execution of Sentences Act section 2. An English version is available at:
See further Gröning, Husabø & Jacobsen, Frihet, forbrytelse og straff – En systematisk framstilling av norsk strafferett, Fagbokforlaget, 2015, pp. 61-62.
For an account of these principles in relation to the education of prison inmates, see “Education for foreign inmates in Norwegian prisons: A legal and humanitarian perspective”, Bergen Journal of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 2/2014 pp. 164-168.
For a description of the history of imprisonment in Norwegian law see Eskeland,S, Fangerett, Universitetsforlaget, 1989 s. 32-45.
The original excerpt is in Norwegian. “Jeg er overbevist om at arkitekturen har betydning for hvordan vi lykkes med å få straffedømte tilbake til samfunnet. Men fengselsarkitektur er krevende. Den skal både skape et humant miljø som bidrar til at mennesker kommer på rett kjøl, samtidig som vi må ivareta sikkerheten både for innsatte, ansatte og samfunnet rundt.”
Åpent Rom 2010, nr.2.
See Langelid & Manger, (
This change from corporal punishment to punishment of the soul has also been understood as a more general change. See for instance Focault, Overvåking og straff, (Discipline and Punishment) 2. Oppl. Gyldendal 2001 p. 20.
See Langelid & Manger, Læring bak murene, Fagbokforlaget 2005 p. 21-22.
T Langelid describes this in: Straff og pedagogikk (Punishment and Pedagogy) Master Thesis 1982.
Erving Goffman characterizes in his book Asylums (Goffman 1967) this type of treatment of prisoners as a “death process” in which the prisoner literally and metaphorically is “stripped” of his own identity.
See Schaanning, E, Den tilsiktede smerten, Unipub 2009.
In the meantime smaller versions of the Botsfengsel model were built towards 1900. Then came Opstad Workhouse which was formally not a jail even if it was perceived as such. Further, Ila and Bredtveit and Berg Prisons were established, but they moved into buildings that were not purposely designed for their function.
Wister, O, (1977) Enkelte trekk ved norsk fengselshistorie, Kriminalomsorgens utdanningssenter.
Report no. 37 2007-2008, (Straff som virker) Punishment that works, relaunched many of these proposals. The government invested resources to realize these proposals to a greater extent than happened with and after Ullersmo.
Wister, O, (1977) Enkelte trekk ved norsk fengselshistorie, Kriminalomsorgens utdanningssenter
Prison Reform Committee 1951 as stated in the preparatory documents to the new Prison Act.
Birgit Cold (
See in particular White Paper no. 104 (
For this system in Botsfengselet, see Langelid & Manger, Læring bak murene, fagbokforlaget 2005 p. 22-23.
See Jens Bay: Konskvenspedagogik. Copenhagen 2005.
Waage, L, Det interaktive fengsel (The Interactive Prison) Aktuelt for kriminalomsorgen nr.2. 1999.
For a discussion on the normality principle, see Vollan, Marianne, “Mot normalt? Normalitetsprinsippet i norsk straffegjennomføring», i Bugge, Hans Christian, mfl., red. Lov, liv og lære. Festskrift til Inge Lorange Backer. Universitetsforlaget, Oslo 2016, pp. 548-560.
See St. Meld. no. 27 (
In this regard section 4 of the Act stipulates that the Correctional Services shall by engaging in cooperation with other public services arrange for convicted persons to receive the services to which they are statutorily entitled.
Åpent ROM nr. 2, 2010, “…Det er frihetsberøvelsen som er straffen når vi setter folk I fengsel. Ut over det er oppgaven å gjøre folk i stand til å reise seg igjen etterpå. Mange av dagens fengsler er bygget etter Philadelphiamodellen som var moderne og ny-vinnende for sin tid. Men det er mer enn 150 år siden! Når vi bygger et fengsel i 2010, benytter vi en tidsmessig arkitektur som legger til rette for å gjennomføre straff som virker. Halden fengsel er et høysikkerhetsfengsel til tross for at det mangler gitter på cellene. Gitter er ikke nødvendig når du har sikkerhetsglass i vinduene”, sier Storberget, “De som synes det likner for mye på et hotell, kan jo ta inn på Continental. Og bli der I seks – syv år!”
See further Fridhov,IM, «Fengselsarkitektur og ideologi» in «Virker straff?», 2012, Ståle Olsen, red.
These documents are a) a discussion document sent out by The Correctional Service Directorate and Statsbygg, the Norwegian government’s key advisor in construction and property affairs, building commissioner, property manager and property developer Office of Public Construction in June 2015. It presents the layout for a standard medium prison, called ‘Model 2015’, with 96 inmates divided into eight units with twelve inmates each, b) Meld.St.12 Utviklingsplan for kapasitet i kriminalomsorgen (Development plan for capacity within correctional services).
Jens Bjørneboe (
For a discussion on the efficiency of smaller vs. bigger prisons, see: B Johnsen, PK Granheim, J Helgesen (
In spite of the fact that during the nineteen hundreds criminal law in European countries suffered many standstills and steps backwards, since the end of the Second World War the respective punitive systems have set off – with some success – along the path of alternative punishment systems from imprisonment. The objective, both in the case of prisons and alternative systems to them, is the prisoner’s re-education and re-socialisation by means of psychological, pedagogical and sociological treatment carried out by prison workers. All the same, the physical nature of prisons remains, as does the issue of safety. Design should therefore combine: personalised treatment and safety. Prison regulations dictate roughly the space requirements to be destined for prison functions. It is a case of seeing what the designer’s margin of freedom is in the face of the restrictive mentality of the client. This aspect is dealt with in depth under the concept of “designer’s ethics”, dwelling on the aesthetics of the project. It needs to respond to an idea that considers the convict a “person” possessing rights, such as dignity, based on the assumption that the prisoner is experiencing an interlude in his life-span. A human being, then, just like the designer. The prison project is conceived by men for other men. It may be strictly bound by the client due to the idea it is intended to convey to public opinion. Finally, the methodology to adopt so as to obtain as much information as possible to make the project comply with the actual human needs of prisoners as well as prison workers, is participated observation and a survey among privileged witnesses, be they prisoners or prison staff. In order to study design beyond the aspects linked with the designer’s values and the client’s ties, there is a purely technical step that concerns approaches in the various project phases. The preventive one, which makes use of risk theory and the importance of single risks, and the qualitative approach, a methodological course through the building system, which deals with issues connected with the environmental and technological systems. In conclusion, it is highlighted that a notable contribution to the design of a prison may come from color-illumination and interior design, in making the spaces fully beneficial in terms of mental and physical well-being.
We are familiar, albeit in a rather superficial manner, with the approach to punishment in the context of the criminal justice systems of northern Europe.
This approach is the benchmark objective towards which all criminal justice systems of Mediterranean Europe strive.
Our paper deals above all with methodological aspects, but without claiming to suggest alternative solutions to those already put to the test in your own country.
The task of architects is to translate concepts like humanisation, dignity and solidarity into the architectural project; to find how to transfer the principles of European constitutions into the physical structures where sentences are meant to be served.
These structures agree on the role of punishment. It must aim towards re-educating the prisoner and his rehabilitation in society.
In the past, punishment was based on solitude, isolation, hard labour, humiliation and religious indoctrination, and used Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon as a reference frame in terms of a physical structure founded on surveillance and visual checks on the prisoner.
Today prison architecture tends to reproduce a “piece of the city” and in this context to translate punitive systems into flexible systems “between sentence passed (conviction) and sentence served” by means of an alternative to punishment as detention.
Currently two circuits appear to coexist: penal institutions, and alternative solutions to imprisonment (semi-custodial arrangements; house arrest; probation).
The two circuits are closely connected. One may pass back and forth between them on the grounds of inappropriate behavior on the prisoner’s part that disturbs the order and discipline in an institution: a decision exercised with great discretion by the Prison Management and/or Penitentiary Police, and ratified by the Magistrate overseeing the prisons.
The medium and long term direction for work now appears to be to build up a special regional detention network for sentences to be carried out.
Penal regulations and European penitentiaries experienced an ideological shift during the 1970s. The prisoner is a human being and the function of prisons was consequently transformed: from a custodial, isolating institution to a place for re-socialisation of the inmate, through appropriate (personalised) treatment and continuous relations with external society.
Treatment is based on the results of scientific observation of the prisoner by social and human science professionals (sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, educators and criminologists). Particular attention is paid to mental and physical deficiencies and other causes of maladjustment.
Re-education treatment aims above all at work, education, cultural, recreational and sports activities, contacts with the outside world and family relations.
Some regulations formulated by progressive European governments have aimed at setting up communication between prisons and external society, envisaging in particular certain forms of participation in the collectivity outside the life of the institute with the purpose of “being able to usefully foster the development of contacts between the prison community and free society”.
The ideological shift immediately suffered a repercussion, arising, in the case of Italy, from “emergency” laws: against terrorism and against organised crime/the mafia. Both types of legislation have given rise to harsh forms of imprisonment and the creation of prisons with various security levels.
Along with these emergency laws, during the twenty years of right-wing government in Italy two other forms of legislation were added in the 1990s and early 21st century: for the crime of dealing in drugs that lead to addiction, and for the crime of illegal immigration involving the prosecution of non-EU immigrants.
Adding these two emergencies to the so-called “preventive detention” of prisoners awaiting a sentence has caused the phenomenon of overcrowded prisons, a seriously inhumane condition for which Italy is repeatedly reprimanded by the EU.
The overcrowding phenomenon has rapidly been reduced following the review of legislation on drug addiction and illegal immigration. “Preventive detention” of prisoners awaiting their sentence still continues.
This norm is one of the most brutal and wicked ever invented. It shows the incapacity of the criminal investigative police, in concert with the pre-trial sections of the prosecutor’s office that try criminal cases, to single out elements of the suspect’s guilt. To obtain a confession from individuals under investigation an instrument is resorted to – preventive detention – whose constitutionality has been seriously questioned. The only excuse for it is if the person arrested was caught “red-handed”.
The mass media are currently playing a disastrous game regarding policies to fight crime. This resembles the features of populist, demagogic politics more and more.
A new emergency campaign was started some time ago and has reached its acute phase. The struggle against corruption requires emergency legislation.
Finally, the prison question is a priority in Parliament, especially for the Minister of Justice. The directives imposed by the EU, the initiative of many non-governmental organisations and volunteer groups, the publication of journal articles, reports and books, have contributed to a change in perspective by the Italian government on this issue.
The issues “apparently” solved are:
Approval and application of the decree
The exceptional use of pre-trial detention.
Rescinding a “silent” law on drug taking and dealing.
Emphasise the agreement with non-EU countries for the return of prisoners to their countries.
The consolidation and extension of alternative sentences as social work.
Decriminalisation of minor crimes and their conversion into fines.
Etc.
Decisions on every measure are the responsibility of the Office of the supervisory judge or of other offices according to the law.
Eighteen committees called States General were established to discuss prison conditions. By 31 December 2015 the committees had to present a report on: the physical environment of the prisons; the life of prisoners; women in prison; prisoners with addictions; minors who committed especially serious offences; work and education; education of prison workers; the process of rehabilitation; etc.
Some of the report has been presented and the rest is still being drafted.
Currently the discussion of these topics has not started yet, and the issue of prisons seems no longer to be on the agenda.
The interests of the government and of legal practitioners operated on comparison and conflict between judicial and executive power, the magistracy against the government and vice versa. The result is fragmented, discontinuous and obscure legislation. The same laws have been rewritten by the judicial bodies (Supreme Cassation Court, Council of State and Court of Auditors), and even by the Constitutional Court.
The discussion is taking too long, especially because it is based on poor legislative quality.
Apparently, the idea of a Schedule of Work should contribute to good legislative production. But there are many ‘buts’. As an example we refer to the pre-trial detention law. The problem in applying this law is the
The problem in Italian criminal justice is the high level of penalties, in relation to the gravity of the crime and years of imprisonment. Every criminal offence can be punished with a minimum and maximum; this decision is the responsibility of the Monocratic Judge or the Court of Judges. Most of the sentences carry maximum terms of imprisonment. If the term of reference is lifetime detention, all the other sentences are severe. Criminal law is a direct consequence of public opinion influenced by the press. The result is a system of excessive penalties without any reference to a good framework for the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners.
Nowadays the application and control of the laws has been delegated to the body of judges, who work along with a weak legislative power (Parliament) and under the control of the magistracy, which is in other words the executive power (government). The incrimination of politicians is in the news every day. All state agencies for the suppression of criminal offences are under the control of the magistrates, such as the Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate, for organised crime and counter-terrorism, the Anti-Corruption Unit and the Crimes Against the Public Administration.
The sum of investigative organisations for fair competition and anti-monopolies, the stock market, privacy, etc., are made up mostly of magistrates. Further, the magistracy (public prosecutors) reinterprets the law in order to shift the focus from economic crime to organised crime, resulting in the application of the anti-mafia law. This means longer sentences.
There are different opinions regarding the debate on prisons. Constitutional and criminal law experts, and some exponents of the progressive left (Verdi, Sinistra Italiana, Partito Radicale), want to abolish the prison system because it is impossible to reform. The government majority (Partito Democratico, ex Forza Italia) is on the side of the magistrates, even if they do not agree when some of their representatives are indicted. The right wing opposition (Forza Italia), including populistic and racist components (Lega Nord, Fratelli d’Italia, Movimento 5 stelle), is against any kind of reform that might mitigate violence in prison.
Once completed, all reforms of the judicial bodies and their implementation, will guarantee, in terms of justice and public opinion, a country that is the cradle of law.
The abolitionists made a list of important issues to make the process feasible:
Decriminalisation of offences, and the introduction instead of a penalty, an administrative fine.
Abolition of lifetime detention, and the introduction of a maximum term of imprisonment (20 years) for the most serious offences.
Abolition of pre-trial detention.
Guarantee alternatives when the process is in progress.
Rights and warranties for the prisoners.
Introduction of torture as a crime.
Humanising the penitentiary system. No to maximum security prisons!
Decriminalisation of offences committed by children.
Close forensic psychiatric hospitals.
Properly educate the security staff, establish shifts and support systems (psychological, economic, upgrading, holidays, etc.).
Currently, despite the presence in prisons of different professionals such as social workers, psychologists, nurses, educators, teachers, volunteers and doctors, the practice of abuse and torture by prison workers still occurs. A negative role, by violating the Hippocratic oath, has been played by doctors and prison workers in regard to these problems. Concerning the behaviour of doctors, the solution can be to put the prisoners under the care of the public health system. As for the prison workers, the solution must be: educational practice, continuous professional upgrades, a process of deconditioning, professional requalification, short periods of work in prison; etc.
In Prison Regulations we read of various types of prison institutions: those for preventive custody; those for serving a sentence; those for employing certain security measures, which also include maximum security prisons for prisoners whose crimes come under terrorism, organised crime or the mafia, but also criminal mental hospitals; those for the sick and disabled; those that detain and care for prisoners with chronic and serious diseases; those aiming at employment; and finally those earmarked for agricultural colonies.
The functional division of prisons is extremely simple. The Section constitutes the basic nucleus. It consists of rooms (rather, cells) where prisoners are confined. The main feature of Prison Regulations is vagueness. The following are some examples taken from the Regulations:
- The size of prisons should be such as to accommodate a modest number of prisoners with the purpose of fostering individualised treatment.
- Rooms are usually of two types: for carrying out individual living needs, and for carrying out collective living needs.
- Rooms need to be large enough. They may contain one or more beds, with private, decent facilities of a rational type and a sufficient number of washbasins.
- The lighting of rooms should be such as to enable reading and working; the airing of rooms should ensure a change of air; in winter rooms should be heated.
We wanted to fully show what the regulations envisage regarding some of the fundamental aspects of space design.
Areas and volumes and physical-technical factors of the building are left to the discretion of prison management and the designer’s subjective intuition. No building standard is proposed.
The only restrictions on planning concern the number of beds and the economic value of the work to be built. Our project has been constructed on these data.
Some rooms are compulsory in Prison Regulations. In the Italian regulations issued in 2000 rooms are casually mentioned and commented on as follows:
- a room to be kept for haircutting and shaving;
- a canteen to serve food, accompanied by the strict measure that “prisoners must always have drinking water available”;
- a room where comfort goods may be sold inside the prison;
- an open-air space/area where prisoners under disciplinary regime or groups of prisoners may get fresh air;
- a room or several rooms to be used for medical services;
- a room to implement norms concerning psychiatric and mental health assistance;
- a room for pharmaceutical services;
- a room for family visits;
- a room for religious functions;
- a room where the entrance and exiting of prisoners can be recorded (Records Office);
- a sick-bay with beds;
- an isolation ward with beds;
- a room for special services to provide health assistance for pregnant women and women who have recently given birth;
- a room to be used as a day nursery for children under 3, children of female prisoners;
- a room for the library/newspaper library;
- a schoolroom for compulsory education (run by the Ministry of Education);
- a room/laboratory for professional training (run by the local regional authorities);
- a room to carry out work activities commissioned by the prison administration and/or private individuals;
- a room for secondary education (only in some prisons);
- a room for prisoners to continue university studies;
- a room for recreational activities;
- a room for cultural activities.
The special custody area (restrictions: 6 months, repeatable after a 3-month break) needs to be dealt with separately, with particular Special Sections located logistically apart from the rest of the prison and managed by special Prison Police departments. The disciplinary regime is for all intents and purposes “a prison within a prison” with its own rules (high level internal and external security; transfer to other prisons; limited number of family visits; phone calls to family members banned; TV and radio banned; correspondence censured; one hour only in the open air; logistical measures on prison premises making communication with other inmates impossible; continual environmental and personal searches) and with the suspension of the rules of individual treatment. The aim of the disciplinary regime is defined in Prison Regulations as a “stimulus to a sense of responsibility and capacity for self-control. It must be suited to the physical and mental conditions of prisoners”. Disciplinary sanctions must “respect the personality of the prisoner”. Prison Police are directed to use physical force and coercive means where prisoners’ actions compromise security (attempts to escape) and order (preventing the activities of other prisoners and/or inconveniencing them).
Physical force must be used to overcome disobedient resistance in prisoners.
In both the ordinary and special detention regimes all relations with prison management take place in writing (question-answer).
Twenty-one kinds of behaviour are considered “incorrect” and liable for punitive measures and prisoner confinement by the prison management. They include the “neglect of cleanliness and tidiness of the person and their room; attitudes and behaviour that are annoying to the community; pretending to be sick; fraudulent communication with the outside or inside; obscene acts or acts contrary to public decency; offensive attitude towards prison staff; taking or damaging of goods belonging to the prison administration”, etc.
Although European constitutions stress that “punishment must not consist of treatment contrary to the sense of humanity”, between 1990 and 2008 in Italy 957 cases were recorded of prisoners taking their own lives. In 2008 there were 48 suicides. Even if torture is absolutely excluded, as are particularly harsh forms of segregation and other actions affecting the prisoner’s health, detestable episodes of physical and psychological violence by the police authorities whose task it is to manage security in prisons unfortunately continue to be recorded.
The translation into an architectural project of any physical structure where human beings spend their lives, be it their place of residence, work, school, hospital or prison, and its contextualisation in the urban fibre usually involves constrictions: the designer’s ideals and values; the dominant government ideologies; and the values expressed by the constitutional charters of the various states. The latter are not always adopted by governments pleading emergency grounds.
Let us suppose that the main contents of the constitutional charter of an EU state underpin government work. This is expressed through instruments of public administration.
The entity commissioning a work aimed at carrying out a state function, in our case imprisonment, is a branch of the Administration of Justice. Two aims are combined in the work: the limitation of individual freedom by isolating the prisoner (punishment), and giving him personalised treatment with the aim of rehabilitating him and bringing him back into society.
These aims are split into numerous objectives and sub-objectives with continuous checks on the rehabilitation process by the prison authorities.
The Administration of Justice demands that the designer respects these aims, and will make explicit – if considered necessary –objectives and sub-objectives. It will certainly place an absolute limit on the expense of creating a new prison or renovating a pre-existing prison structure. Expense is, as is well known, the primary principle for any administration bound by a budget.
The work must be created with “humanisation” of the life and work environments of prisoners as the underlying theme of the project.
It is upon this constraint that the designer applies his ideals and values. There is no doubt that justice and social equity dominate his vision; the society he hopes for will have solidarity as its final objective.
The architectural project, with its spaces and sub-divisions relating to their functions and activities, will aim at ensuring the physical conditions of places for the “optimal” implementation of rehabilitation processes and the re-socialisation of prisoners. Project strategies will handle various issues, such as (we will quote just a few):
How to create the physical conditions which will make personalised treatment for prisoner rehabilitation and re-socialisation feasible in the context of cramped, highly controlled spaces;
How to create environments and pathways in a structure tied to security, but which will enable freedom of movement of prisoners;
How to create technical and technological solutions for the environmental comfort of the places where inmates live and work (or study).
Where the “security” question is experienced as predominant, creativity in the project is not necessary. Suffice it to reproduce the prison where the sentence is the punishment society requires for those who deviate. Nothing is easier than the creation of environments that unite repression and regression, which affect both prison workers and prisoners equally. In other words, the prison is then a place for training criminals and an environment of planned violence.
“Humanisation” unites with “sociality” and here the designer’s “creative” capacity comes into play in the architectural solutions.
In the next paper, Prof. Giofrè’s, you will see an example of creativity applied to a nodal aspect of the project: the “pathways” that cross, unite or separate prison environments. They play a decisive role in ensuring freedom of movement of prisoners.
At this point in the debate we need to ask more than one question:
What are the points of convergence or compromise between designer and client? We could try to give an answer to this question as follows. The most important points of convergence, apart from the expenditure ceiling, are the quantitative ones given in the invitation to tender prepared by the client (e.g. the surface area/prisoner ratio). The points of compromise are above all related to the quality of the building and plant and the cladding/walls, finishings, such as floors, door and window closures, etc. It should be said that the compromise on building/plant quality is mostly limited, due to the “expenditure ceiling” constraint. The designer has a wide margin of maneuver in regard to the aesthetic quality of both the external (covering of the facades) and, above all, internal spaces where the life/time of individuals is important.
Is it conceivable that the same criteria architects use for residential or hospital buildings, for example, be adopted for a physical structure conceived to function between punishment and redemption, bound by the obligations of security? The answer cannot but be a single one. The condition of being a prisoner is an interlude in his lifetime. The prisoner is a human being, just as the designer is. The prison project must be conceived by men for other men, with no “ifs” or “buts”. Whatever solution is given to the security aspect - from the traditional one of walled-up windows or holes with bars on the outside, or internal pathways with one obstacle after another and closures, to ones that are the expression of the “sixth power” (Bauman and Lyon,
The designer’s responsibility not only concerns whether the physical structure thoroughly conceived responds to architectural canons (“in accordance with best practice”) but also whether it is properly built and integrated into the urban plan for the zone. This is the primary aspect for a good designer and a good professional. It triggers reflection as to whether cultural and ideological components are decisive: should a prison be located within the urban fabric or marginalised outside it? The answer is linked to the idea that is intended to be conveyed to the public through the prison. If the authority developing the principles of criminal policy considers that the prison must serve as a warning to citizens, it is inevitable that it will lean towards a total institution. The urban planning solution would naturally be to have it inside the city. This is the architectural solution that finds the “prison city” most beneficial economically, with a size accommodating over 1,000 prisoners, a policy that intensifies the “crime issue”. Penitential megastructures are a source of unmanageability, conflict and physical and mental violence. Any strategy towards personalised treatments would be absolutely impracticable.
If the idea that is intended to be conveyed is of punishment as redemption by means of a course of prisoner rehabilitation, the prison should contain a minimal number of inmates (no more than 100 units), with a tendency towards widespread, partially open structures on both urban and rural territory, where the “work” factor is practicable, and also because the inclusion of a prisoner in a close-knit community is one of the routes to his social rehabilitation.
When the project phase starts up the team working on it must continually ask themselves questions: how does it relate to the collectivity (prisoners; prison staff) whose daily life is inside a physical structure where society exercises its power to administer punishment, and how in this context can it respect the human needs of the collectivity? The query highlights the social and moral responsibility of design to a real world made up of flesh and blood people. A “project on a human scale”, therefore, must interface with the emergency contexts (in our case) of a “restrained” group of human beings, and in other extreme cases with those “on the edge of survival”, such as the homeless, refugees, immigrants and the poor.
So the designer is a “technical intellectual” (Gramsci, 1955: “Intellectuals and the Organisation of Culture”), endowed with an “ethical reponsibility” that goes well beyond professional deontology. The scenarios that ensue are of greater, unprecedented complexity.
The need for some form of designer ethics begins with the acknowledgement that “the aim of great narration and totalising visions of the past (Lyotard, 1979) and a new awareness of the complex, inconsistent nature of the phenomena of scientific, economic and cultural systems with which knowledge must interface (Morin,
The designer’s view of any building, whether residential or social (schools, cultural centres, universities and science research centres, etc.), concerning health (teaching hospitals, state of the art hospitals, local health centres, etc.), or military/paramilitary structures, etc., is to create a “social project” aiming towards objectives like the improvement of society and the quality of life of inhabitants. In other words, the designer’s role is changing.
Project action, therefore, entails ethical responsibility towards the collectivity, linking subjective idealistic choices with collective responsibility. Idealistic choices inevitably advocate a fairer world with more justice and solidarity. As can be seen, little by little the project is moving towards a utopian ideal with solutions to be followed or unforgivable abstractions.
To avoid unforgivable abstractions is possible since the project is not only the fruit of a single designer’s creativity but the fruit of the slow ripening of a collective reworking of needs.
The great era of “participatory planning” has begun, involving potential users in the decision processes of the project.
In our case participation in the planning process is the collection of social input on imprisoned human beings, arising from the daily experience of prison staff with their variety of professional skills, and prisoners or ex-prisoners.
The life cycle of a building is closely linked to the choices made by the designer in the building process leading to the creation of the building.
The different phases now have a mandate of their own largely developed by the international community of design architects/engineers.
The phases can be summarised as follows:
The various phases involve different approaches: the “preventive” and the “qualitative”.
The first has been regulated to a greater degree; the second is linked to the development of scientific research and to an osmosis with industries producing building materials and technology.
The spaces inside a building are configured as “confined environments”.
For those living in these environments they bring psycho-physical stress. The use of new structural elements, new building materials, synthetic thermal insulation materials, various linings, new substances for treatment and cleaning, new heating/air conditioning systems and whatever else used in building construction, which will contribute to the perception by users of the quality of the environment, including that of the air - all, therefore, are potential risk factors and potential causes of physical and psychological disorders.
Three diseases arise from buildings according to Treatises on Hygiene and Environmental Psychology. Their effects on humans have been studied extensively:
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS);
Sick Building Syndrome (SBS);
Building Related Illness (BRI).
The first (MCS) is a syndrome characterised by allergic reactions of the body to chemical and environmental agents, present singularly or in combination, in the life or work environment.
Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) arises when at least 20% of the occupants show signs of the illness for more than two weeks without objective/instrumental perception being noted for factors of environmental decay. The symptoms are characterised by concentration disorders, eye irritation, headache, nausea and dry mouth. They disappear quickly as soon as the person leaves the building.
Finally BRI. Illnesses are objectively observed and attributed to the building due to the inadequate quality of the air inside, caused by pollution factors in a gaseous or filtered liquid form, or micro-organisms.
In every life and work environment in prisons, potential risks are present.
Some may be indicated as “collective” and affect both the architectural form and space distribution. The most important for repercussions on the project is undoubtedly the risk of fire/explosion.
Other risks resulting from overcrowding are found in the noise risk, from both a biological and psychiatric point of view.
Besides risks classified as collective there are “subjective” risks linked above all to risk factors the prisoner comes into contact with, such as, for example, dangerous substances in chemical agents, carcinogenic and mutagenic agents and exposed materials containing amianthus/asbestos.
The European directives implemented by national laws are quite precise and are part of a process of continuous updating, as science and technological research moves forward on the subject of an individual’s maximum acceptable concentration (MAC) of absorption factors of physical-technical pollutants (humidity, temperature, radiation, product chemicals, noise, ‘indoors’, quality of air and water, biological agents, dangerous refuse, etc.) and the foreseeable consequences on the individual’s health.
In spite of continuous monitoring and the important contribution of scholars and scientists, it has not been possible to introduce parameters connected with the “mental health” of the individual in “restricted” conditions or, rather, the psychiatric consequences of imprisonment on the individual.
The knowledge of this variable (mental health) and its incidence and prevalence in prisoner behaviour is a factor to be considered strategic for design.
In designer’s ethics the issue of design based on preserving the prisoner’s mental health takes priority.
At the same time, the designer must meet the client’s requirement of security in the prison environment.
We will not even mention the scholars – from Foucault to Goffman – who have handled the issues of total institutions and the close relationship between these institutions and mental suffering and deviant behaviour of those deprived of freedom. What makes things worse is the context of the daily life of the population, dominated by
To the space dimension is added the dimension of time. Indefinite time in a limited space. In order to survive the prisoner becomes a prisoner of himself, of his own mental labyrinth, which can only be lived through by internalising the institution’s norms. Otherwise, time will create a state of deep solitude in an inevitably noisy and potentially violent environment. In this context the prisoner progressively loses the ability to attribute a constructive meaning to relations with the outside.
Numerous investigations carried out inside Italian prisons have converged on the realisation that “mental distress constitutes the real emergency of prisons. If prison itself is not the primary cause of a disorder, it shows itself to the outside as a repository of spreading mental distress, as if it were a photograph of growing social marginalisation consisting of immigrants, prostitutes, drug addicts, the homeless, alcoholics and drifters. Prison is an introflexed system that, through segregation and neutralisation, exercises control over deviant behaviour, whether of a social or psycho-pathological type. The re-education function fades away while the institution’s capacity to progressively degrade and debilitate the person builds up. Prison takes on the character of the preferred environment for shutting away psychologically disturbed people. The “rotating door” phenomenon that distinguishes psychiatric services unfolds between prison and territory in a constant, perverse exchange of users, for whom forced restraint proves the only practicable route” (C. Cerchi, School of Criminology, Bologna University:
The designer – and this may appear to be an extreme methodological position – has to live through the prison experience as a “participating observer”, interviewing the actors of the institution, in particular the staff giving treatment and the medical, psychiatric and nursing staff, to understand better which prison population the design is addressing.
The decisive step is how to acknowledge the material resulting from a psycho-socio-anthropological and penal approach and turn it into technical pathways for architectural design.
The pathway is a process that analytically breaks down the functions and activities taking place inside the prison.
The “building system” is composed of an “environmental system” and a “technological system”.
The “environmental system” breaks down into the following points:
Define objectives. These are identified in the achievement of high standards of environmental quality, connected in the case in point to a prison that will reduce the stress pervading it.
Pick out the activities carried out by prisoners in their treatment and by the surveillance apparatus. Each activity gives rise to an Environmental Unit.
Pick out the compatibility relationship of the elementary activities (e.g. arrival from outside; data registration and filing; allocation of sleeping quarters; medical examination and diagnostic tests); definition of macro-activities (arrival and compilation of prisoner’s file) and basic functional sub-areas (1. sub-area: welcome/orientation; 2. sub-area: technical/administrative).
Define spaces to be designed to accommodate compatible activity systems (e.g. Environmental Units: waiting room with toilets; acceptance/admittance; registration office (file compilation; destination/Section and sleeping quarters).
Quantify size of Environmental Units (minimum and maximum area obtainable from ergonomic studies).
Define requests for services based on spaces (these include environmental and security features, provision of plant and equipment obtainable from EU technical regulations).
The “technological system” tends towards creating classes of technical elements which fulfill the requirements of the various user/client categories. Each industrial product used in constructing the building must meet specific performance levels (resistance of material; duration).
Building organisation is sub-divided into parts. The technological system ranks them as follows:
Technological Unit Classes (supporting structures; closure devices; internal partitions; external partitions).
Technological Units (foundation structures; elevation structures; containment structures; vertical closures; lower and upper horizontal closures, etc.).
Technical Element Classes (walls; fixtures; covering; balconies, etc.).
The last step that becomes decisive as far as setting down the “tender specifications” and cost assessment for the work is the compatibility relationship between Environmental Unit, materials and technical elements.
Using “graph theory” it is possible to follow the daily routes and movements (from – to) of some prisoners in the different physical areas of confinement (Sections). It is the base-material that will make the project the most compliant with the client’s needs and at the same time pay great attention to the needs of prisoners (humanisation of architectural and technological design solutions).
If the psycho-physical wellbeing of those experiencing prison is considered important, and this is so, then the interior design of spaces should guarantee comfort and positively stimulate the implementation of treatment and the work both of prisoners and prison staff, and should mitigate the anxiety and stress that greatly impregnates the institution.
In discussions involving designers of extremely complex prisons where highly demanding elements or features are present, it is worth examining space treatment from a specifically aesthetic point of view, so as to be able to contribute to improving the perception of the environment.
This viewpoint involves reworking concepts like aesthetics and interior design, and an analytical reappraisal of ergonomics and theories of perception to manage to experimentally develop some decisive parameters for defining the quality of design: colour and illumination.
We take concepts like aesthetics and interior design for granted. Ergonomics also plays a decisive role in design.
In designing a space anthropometric parameters not only contribute to size (area/volume) but also condition the placing of fittings, and minimum and maximum distances for placing equipment and light switches; they are the parameters linked to sensory capacities like visual sharpness and the capacity to discriminate sound signals.
It is colour combined with illumination that occupies a decisive position in the design of a building for the effects it produces on people. These are of various kinds:
“Photobiological”: vision of the shape of objects, their size and the quality of materials, and the perception of spatial relations.
“Communicative”: non-verbal signals, linked with the area’s structure, space layout and movement of the body.
“Psychological”: changes in the ways of feeling, interpreting, evaluating and acting; effects: variable combination between neurophysiological aspects connected with the energy produced by colour-light and ways of individual reworking.
“Therapeutic”: effects on states of imbalance of the body and/or mind (abdominal tension; neurovegetative tension). Colours that are reassuring and create conditions for subjective wellbeing.
The studies carried out up to now on colour in spaces have suggested some conclusions, summarised below:
- Colour should be a means of expressing the building’s character, its uses and intended uses.
- Colours used to furnish the internal environment should be well-defined and their chromatic harmony determined by the function of the environments and their volume.
- Rooms should be diversified, not just so that they are more easily identified, but for the different functions they accommodate.
- In harmony with natural and artificial light, colour should be a means to complete the environment that will ensure comfortable and efficient vision for all those living and working there.
- Improvement in the visibility of routes and access points through colour and light solutions.
- Plants (vegetation) furnishing the environment should be part of the colour system (Malkin, 1992).
In interior design it has been possible to define standards relating to the relationship between technical – colour – lighting components:
- Floors should be in colours with a low brightness value, between 15–40, and high saturation, with the purpose of giving the feeling of safety and solidity. The use of shiny colours that would give the impression of a wet surface is not advisable. The creation of patterns on floors, such as a check design and/or dark and light squares, could cause difficulty in walking around for individuals already under stress.
- Walls should be in colours with an average brightness value of 40–70.
- Ceilings should be in colours with a high brightness value, from 70–95, and with low saturation.
- External fixtures should be of a light colour to increase brightness inside the room and so as not to outline the source of light.
- The colour of internal fixtures could be defined to indicate the functions of the rooms so that they are easier to recognise.
- Curtains should be considered as a filter for the lighting of the environment.
- The choice of colour should concur with the choices of natural and artificial lighting, using lamps able to provide the same chromatic effect and temperature as natural light, i.e. which simulate as closely as possible the entire spectrum of sunlight.
Some final considerations. Even where we have dwelt at length on some of the technical aspects of designing a prison, it is considered that the pervasive idea of our work as scholars and designers of total institutions is how to make them lose their “totality” feature. Not only is this an expression of civility but it also serves to give back “dignity” to those who have committed the crime for which they have been condemned to a prison sentence. Giving back dignity to an individual is a necessary step towards that person’s rehabilitation and for their return to society. It emphasises that society does not intend to be vengeful, but sympathetic. This is substantiated in:
The process of a balanced release from prison.
Prison as the last solution. Singling out other alternatives to house arrest for groups of crimes without involving confinement.
The inclusion among principal sentences of ones with a prescriptive or interdictory nature, too.
Strengthening all types of punishment involving prison with re-socialisation components, in the first place implementing work activity.
Involving public opinion as much as possible in the debate on the ethical values and principles that support the reform of the criminal sanctions system as well as its fundamental aspects (Severino, 2014).
There is nowadays a process called “Mafia Capitale”. This is the corrupt relationship between companies and public administration in order to obtain favours for assigning public works. Capitalistic enterprise in many countries does not always mean corrupt relationships, but in Italy the problem is the law that regulates public contracts with a mechanism of procurement, based on cost pressure, without taking into account the economic sustainability for the companies…we could go on and on.
This chapter seeks to provide an analysis of the evolution of the legislative framework of the Italian prison system to highlight the influence of the functional profile on its structure. This includes not only its organisation, but also those aspects connected with the architecture of prisons.
In Italy, the philosophy concerning prisons has been characterised, since the end of the nineteenth century, by a custodial logic that finds its full expression in the general regulations of “Prisons and Reformatories” of 1891. This set the cornerstone of the new prison policy, characterised by the importance placed on the human and social conditions of the condemned, as a result of a criminological positivism that found its core in the differential, scientific and individualised treatment of those convicted.
This system declined with the rise of Fascism under which sentencing abandons the re-educational perspective in favour of a purely punitive dimension, an expression of the right of the state to protect and defend itself.
This ideology is faithfully represented in the Regulations for the “istituti di prevenzione e pena”, issued by Royal Decree no. 787 of 18 June 1931, which would remain in force until 1975.
Within this framework, the three fundamental and mandatory laws for prison life are work, civil education and religious practices, with a strict separation between prison and the outside world.
The Regulation of 1931 was followed by Law no. 527 of 9 May 1932, “provisions on prison reform” consisting of five articles. These included one on the renovation of prison buildings, but since no specific funding was set aside for this, it marked the beginning of the decline of the architectural model and saw the construction of smaller buildings.
With the entry into force of the post-war Constitution, re-education is established as a constitutional principle. This leads to a debate on the function of sentencing that necessarily has implications for the prison system itself, and therefore on the structure and organisation of prisons oriented towards the resocialisation of the prisoner.
This perspective enters into crisis in the late 1980s. If, on the one hand, the system seemed oriented towards seeking a balance between security and the progressive projection of individualised treatment beyond the prison walls, then on the other hand, the resurgence of the violence of organised crime led to the introduction of a differentiated and more severe regime, based on the nature of the crime committed by the convicted person. This new element had notable consequences on the structural profile.
In order to foresee future developments, also from a structural point of view, in the prison system, the regulations must necessarily be brought under the framework established by the European Prison Rules, which requires a different approach in which, as early as the profile of prison architecture, greater attention is paid to the constitutional status of the detainee.
In order to understand fully the evolution of the Italian penitentiary system, especially with a view to grasping the development towards fully guaranteeing the rehabilitation of offenders, it is necessary to review the principal moments of this evolution. We begin with the emergence of the concept of institutionalised internment concurrent with the establishment of the rule of law.
A “custodial” logic characterises the various regulatory interventions in the Italian system in the final decade of the 19th century.
After Unification, the criminal justice system too saw a process of “Piedmontisation” that led to the promulgation of regulations intended to govern the various types of prisons
It was only with the entry into force of the Zanardelli Code (1 January 1890) that a path began, at least in terms of legislative innovations, which opened the door to reform of the prison system. Until then this had been inspired by a philosophy of perpetual segregation, laid down by the first penitentiary law of the Kingdom of Italy (Law no. 1653 of 28 January 1864, on the means of rationalising and constructing prisons).
But that custodial logic found its full expression in the general regulation of prisons and reformatories of 1891 (Royal Decree no. 260 of 1 February 1891), emanated to implement the prison reform law (Law no. 6165 of 14 July 1889) which established the new cornerstone of prison policy, centred on the human and social conditions of the condemned. This was a result of criminological positivism that had the differentiated, scientific and individualised treatment of the condemned at its core. This shifted the focus of thinking about punishment onto the human and social conditions of the offender.
The effectiveness of the regulation, which dealt in detail with the various types of prisons, ran up against the structural problem, thus affecting the employment of those criteria (innovative for the time) for the carrying out of a sentence under the Criminal Code.
Despite these declarations of principle, conditions for detainees were still inhumane.
That situation continued in the period of Giolitti, which saw a number of reforms such as the abolition of foot chains for those condemned to hard labour, and an easing of disciplinary measures, such as the abolition of straitjackets, irons and the dark cell, used in cases of disciplinary violations by inmates.
The regulatory framework for the management of prisons did not change significantly until the First World War.
The most important intervention was the promulgation, in 1907, of Royal Decree no. 150 of the approved regulation on prison guards, and of Royal Decree no. 606 on reformatories for minors, which foresaw, among other things, the establishment of a body of educators instead of prison guards.
The principle that prisoners should be the subject of care for rehabilitation purposes, rather than for ones of simple repression and punishment, was only implemented between 1921 and 1922. Those years saw a number of memoranda that would be transposed within Royal Decree no. 393 of 19 February 1922, significantly governing certain areas such as visiting, correspondence and work done in prisons.
The same period saw the passage of the Directorate General of Prisons and Reformatories from the Interior Ministry to the Justice Ministry, resulting in the transfer of the duties of prefects and vice-prefects to the general prosecutors at the Courts of Appeal and the public prosecutors, resulting in the imposition of the sentence becoming jurisdictional as well.
The situation, already far from rosy, worsened significantly with the advent of Fascism. This period saw a marked decline in the system, characterised by the abandonment of sentencing with any notion of re-education, and a return to a purely punitive dimension, the expression of the right of protection and defence of the State.
What disappears is any thinking that might tend to reconnect a re-educational aim to punishment, and this is made clear in the description, found in many writings, of the offender in terms of a “criminalised sinner”. Redefining the directorate general as dedicated to “institutions of prevention and punishment” was certainly significant.
This notion was maintained in the Rocco (Criminal) Code of 1930 and the Criminal Procedure Code of the following year. It found its faithful transposition into the Regulations for Institutions of Prevention and Punishment, issued by Royal Decree no. 787 of 18 June 1931, which remained in force until 1975.
In the framework outlined by the regulations, prison life was essentially organised on just three elements: work, civic education and religious practices, with a strict separation of the prison world from the outside and without any form of recreation.
Prison was essentially designed as a closed institution, characterised not only by a clear separation from the outside world, but also by rigidity, not only in terms of planning with regard to the three fundamental laws of treatment mentioned above (religious practices, work and education), but also in the management of prisoners. Inmates were called, with the obvious intention of suppressing their personalities, only by their serial number, and isolated within institutions where access was denied to outsiders.
A brief look at the structure of the Regulations of 1931 clarifies the concept of punishment that it was based on. It listed in detail everything that was forbidden, providing related punishments. There was to be no disrespectful demeanour, no use of profane words, no playing cards, no staying in bed during the day unless justified by illness or other reasons, no refusing to attend religious services, no reading or possession of texts with a political content, and no writing more than two letters a week to family members. Among other things, it was forbidden to write these two letters to the same person, to the extent that prisoners were given a pencil and a sheet of paper that were then to be handed back after writing the letter. Visits with relatives, which took place separated by wire mesh, were listened to by the prison staff. The sanctions regime went from a ban on smoking, writing, washing and shaving for a few days, to a ban on visits, and to a restraining bed, or imprisonment in a padded cell.
Then, there were numerous offences that resulted in penal sanctions which were added to those for which the prisoner was being detained.
The notion of punishment as a reaction of the state to a personal “condition” of the “criminalised sinner” can be seen in the fact that the records of the prisoner noted not only their own crimes and behaviour in prison, but also the records of family members and their economic conditions and political ideas. This went as far as noting cases of madness, alcoholism, syphilis, suicide or prostitution.
The prison system provided for three groups of prisons: remand prisons, including judicial prisons intended for those detained awaiting trial to ensure their presence in court; ordinary prisons; and prisons for the implementation of special sentences.
The 1931 regulation was followed by Law no. 527 of 9 May 1932, “provisions on prison reform”, composed of five articles, governing the work of prisoners, the restructuring of prison buildings, prison accounting and the institutions of assistance to prisoners.
It is interesting to note that, despite one of the points of the reform being the “strengthening” and “redevelopment” of prison buildings, the lack of an express programme of financing meant that any intervention depended on the Ministry of Public Works. In reality this resulted in the decline in the existing structures.
A new wave of legislation appeared starting in the 1930s, with the enactment of Laws no. 1404 and 1579, in 1934, which rewrote the provisions regarding juvenile courts and rehabilitation homes for minors. Seven years later a new discipline for district prisons was issued, dividing them into two categories, depending on their size: the first, type A, smaller, established in smaller judicial centres; the second, type B, larger, established in districts, that is, in areas that were the responsibility of the courts and returned to the direction of the magistrates. This intervention was part of the Grandi Plan of 1941 within which a major role is played by the construction of the “penitentiary city” of Rebibbia in Rome, inspired by the principles of observation and the individualisation of treatment, resulting in a diversification at the planning level of the buildings depending on their target: females, remand prisoners, etc.
With the enactment of the Italian Constitution (1948), the rehabilitative aspect of sentencing becomes a full constitutional principle. This was a synthesis and, at the same time, the start of a wide debate about the function of sentencing. This necessarily had repercussions on the prison system and, therefore, on the structure and organisation of prisons, apparently geared towards re-socialisation.
Interestingly, the debate in the Constituent Assembly
This period saw a number of bloody riots in the prison system. They involved the Regina Coeli prison in Rome, the Nuove in Turin and the San Vittore in Milan
And it is this cultural and theoretical context that gives birth to Article 27 of the Constitution which provides in the last two paragraphs, on the one hand, a ban on the death penalty (paragraph 4) as well as inhuman punishment (paragraph 3), but also that punishment “must aim at the rehabilitation of the convicted person”. This last provision, which in the opinion of the Right Honourable Maffei, should have been reformulated to provide that “the prison environment must be organised in accordance with the social need of the re-education of the offender”
There can be no doubt that this sort of structure leaves ample room for the legislator to determine the characteristics of the punishment aimed at ensuring the public good in relation to the preservation of social order, hence the proportional character of the same. This has been postulated since the time of Cesare Beccaria, and it also responds to the aim of strengthening the deterrent effect with respect to crimes that are more damaging to society.
1948 saw the establishment of the first parliamentary commission of inquiry into the state of prisons. The commission was chaired by Senator Giovanni Persico. Two years after taking on the role, in 1950, he presented to the Chamber of Deputies a long report which, however, did not address critical points of the prison system. In no way, in fact, were the foundations of the system touched, built as it was on the isolation of prison from civil society. The most significant proposals in the report were the abolition of daytime confinement, the introduction of music as a means of rehabilitation, greater emphasis on agricultural labour, the abolition of standard haircuts, the right to request and purchase books, the abolition of the system of calling detainees by their serial numbers, and other humanising innovations.
The only changes attempted came through memoranda, and not therefore by interventions of Parliament. These related to visits, the possibility of reading and writing, and calling prisoners by their own names. These changes were retracted three years later, with the memorandum of the Minister of Justice De Pietro (24 February 1954) which restored a more conservative character to prison regulations.
The prison system only came back to the attention of Parliament in 1960 with a bill presented by the Minister of Justice Gonella, with which he tried to bring the prison system into line with the Minimum Standards of the UN. This included the introduction of the individualisation of re-educational treatment based on observations of the prisoner’s personality. Although never enacted, and abandoned in 1963 at the closing of the legislature, the contents of the bill were very interesting, such as planned new elements – educators and social service centres – as well as the introduction of probation. It was no coincidence that it was taken up again on several occasions as the basis for various bills that were presented.
For our purposes we need to focus on the emergence of the rehabilitative aim of the sentence. This element necessarily conditions the legal system, as well as the behaviour of judges in the concrete determination of sentences, whose evolution, albeit with certain moments of immobility
Rehabilitative purpose, in the sense of a full social reintegration of the prisoner, through a “useful sentence” which, as maintained by the theorists of the “New Social Defence”, ensures compliance with the obligation of the state to recover the individual for society, identifying the aim of protecting society with this element.
It is, in fact, thanks to the efforts of the proponents of this approach, together with scholars from the school of clinical criminology, as it was known, that 1955 saw the publication of the “Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners” adopted by the UN and aimed essentially at an individualised treatment of the offender.
These rules were taken up in the standards adopted by the Council of Europe with its 1973 resolution (no. 5), reviewed later (Recommendation R (87)3 of 12 February 1987) in terms of an increased focus on the physical and mental health of prisoners, their living conditions in prison and their reintegration into society.
In Italy, this debate finds its consecration in regulatory terms in the 1975 reform that brought an end to an intense discussion which began in 1968 on the very usefulness of prison. This was affected, clearly, by a strong ideological input that tended to establish a link between imprisonment and the social position of the imprisoned. This was partly a result of the social and political upheaval taking place at the time that had definite repercussions within the prison system as well, and saw a new season of struggles, characterised by a high degree of politicisation among inmates.
Laws no. 354 of 26 July 1975 “Norms on penitentiary regulations and the implementation of measures preventing and restricting freedom” is the first organic reform of penitentiary institutions
Divided into two parts, the regulations concerned penitentiary treatment (Articles 1-58) and penitentiary organisation (59-91). The characteristic features were the principle of the qualification of the treatment which, by express provision in Article 1, must have as its foundation the safeguarding of the dignity and personality, and the protection of the rights of all who are deprived of their personal freedom
As for the structure of adult institutions, there are 4 types:
- remand institutions (Article 60), divided into district prisons – for the custody of accused available to the magistrate, established in district capitals which do not have prisons; and prisons – for the custody of accused available to all the judicial authorities, in district capitals
- institutions for the implementation of sentences (Article 61) including remand centres, for the execution of the arrest; and prisons for the implementation of the sentence;
- institutions for the implementation of detention measures (Article 62) broken down into agricultural colonies, work houses, nursing and custodial homes and psychiatric hospitals;
- observation centres (Article 62), autonomous institutions or sections of other institutions designated to carry out observation aiming to identify the treatment referred to in Article 13 of the law.
An essential feature of the system thus introduced was the rethinking of “penitentiary treatment”, evidently inspired by a different philosophy that takes into account, for the purpose of combating them, the negative effects of detention and imprisonment
Article 15 of the penitentiary regulation places alongside education
The “new” elements through which treatment unfolds are reflected essentially in telephone usage and visits (Article 18 Penit. Regs.), work outside the prison (Article 21 Penit. Regs. and Article 46 Exec. Reg. 1976), permits (Articles 30 and 30
This has also had a considerable impact on staff in the prison system through the introduction of new operators, all engaged in the process of the social reintegration of prisoners (the final aim of the rehabilitation treatment programme). These educators, social workers, teachers, voluntary workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and criminologists are under the internal control of the director of the institution and externally of the supervising magistrate.
The system outlined was the subject of various interventions that were also necessary to cope with the climate of tension that grew in those years.
In 1977, the government issued an inter-ministerial decree (Decree no. 450 of 12 May 1977) “for the coordination of external security services in prisons” with which, under the internal organisational structure, the power of coordinating security (internal and external) of correctional facilities was entrusted to a senior Carabinieri officer; while structurally special prisons – Institutions of Maximum Security – were established
Other interventions had to do with equipment and the use of certain categories of prison workers (Decree Law no. 111 of 14 April 1978); the requirement to record in the criminal records office the measures used by the surveillance section (Law no. 689 of 24 November 1981), probation for drug addicts or alcoholics (Law no. 197 of 21 June 1985). However the reform only took place eleven years after its enactment, with Law no. 663 of 10 October 1986, known as the “Gozzini Law”.
This was a measure that was born with the intention of enhancing the rehabilitative aspect of incarceration, making it prevail over punishment which until then had been the principal scope. And thus good-behaviour passes, being entrusted to the social services, home detention, probation, parole, the extinction of life imprisonment, after five years of parole, early release and no mention of the sentence in the criminal record in favour of the convicted person with exemplary conduct and who enjoys a reduction in their sentence.
Apparently going against this was the introduction of the harsh prison regime (so-called Article 41
A result with great impact, also in line with some important interventions of the Constitutional Court (Sentences 185 and 312/1985; 343/1987, 282, 386 and 559/1989), was obtained by the introduction of the “new arrivals” service. This involves a preliminary intervention to completely describe the subject on their entering prison (first psychological exam, medical examination, first interview with an educator).
The Gozzini Law also introduced a special surveillance regime, with strict security standards for special cases: individuals who exhibit “penitentiary dangerousness”, that is, displaying behaviour that could compromise the security or order of the institutions. This behaviour, though, is evaluated by the supervisory staff. It is a regime that does not affect constitutionally guaranteed rights, and so cannot relate to food, hygiene, clothing, health, religious practices, but which can also lead to a decision to transfer an inmate to another institution deemed more suitable. A practice then institutionalised by Law no. 279 of 23 December 2002 with which the maximum-security regime was established.
Another significant change in the system occurs with the Simeone-Saraceni Law (no. 165 of 27 May 1998). This strengthens the system of alternative measures to detention, assisted by the general provision of an automatic suspension of sentences of less than three years (four years for drug addicts and alcoholics), with the possibility for the convict to ask for one of three alternative forms of detention (community service, home detention or probation). The primary goal of the law was to be able to realise “the non-entry policy” for individuals for whom the experience of prison would be more criminalising than rehabilitative.
Many controversies have followed the enactment of this provision arising from the constant demands for greater safety on the part of civil society, especially following the horrendous incidents of violence perpetrated by organised crime organisations in the early ‘90s. These pressures led to a kind of reversal of the trend that culminated in the introduction of Article 4
Thus was introduced a rule intended to establish a dual penitentiary system, differentiated according to the nature of the offence, for persons sentenced for crimes typical of organised crime or subversion, for whom prison re-education measures could be applied only in cases of cooperation with justice, or the acquisition of elements that indicated the non-existence of links with organised crime or subversion.
The tightening of the regime then included changes made to the good-behaviour passes, the conditional release from the sentence and the assignment of external work to those convicted of such crimes.
It was in this context that Presidential Decree no. 230/2000 saw the light of day, born with the objective of outlining a new treatment, more in line with the aims declared in 1975, in which the priority was building relationships with society outside prison, in order to ensure the full social reintegration of the offender. In this context, obviously, education plays a central role, to the extent of allowing the detainee, who receives economic aid for this end, to keep instruments (such as computers) needed for work or study purposes in their cell.
The framework thus briefly described, albeit not obviously, highlights the close relationship between the abstract purpose of the sentence, which cannot now be separated from rehabilitation, and the structure that necessarily must include those elements that ensure the realisation of those paths that characterise the treatment, from the point of view of the social reintegration of the subject.
But if, on the level of principle, this process appears straightforward, in reality the problems encountered have been enormous. They have highlighted on various occasions the unsuitability of the structures on which, over the years, the interventions carried out were certainly not responsive to the needs of a real modernisation policy designed to ensure a correspondence between the aim of the sentence and the functioning of the structure.
Confirmation of this can be found in the atavistic problem of overcrowding. Not surprisingly this was defined in terms of a “physiological condition” of prisons, that is, a “structural problem”. In this sense the Parliamentary conversion into law of Law by Decree no. 211 of 22 December 2011, attempted to employ amnesty measures to deal with the issue, which obviously had a “buffer” effect on the emergency situation, but did not in any way provide a structural solution. Suffice to think of the recently enacted measure, known as the Empty Prisons Law (Law by Decree no. 146 of 23 December 2013, ratified by Law no. 10 of 21 February 2014, “Urgent measures concerning the protection of the fundamental rights of detainees and a controlled reduction of the prison population”. This finds its antecedent in the aforementioned Law by Decree 211/2011, converted into Law no. 9 of 17 February 2012, entitled “Urgent measures for combating custodial tension caused by overcrowding in prisons”).
These are measures which obviously tend to affect the number of people held in prison by introducing measures to reduce the incoming number – think of interventions in the field of small-time drug dealing – and to facilitate access to alternative measures. This, however, created many problems from the first intervention in 2010 which had included the possibility of serving the last year of a prison sentence at home, but in this way discriminated, for example, within the prison population against foreigners who did not have a fixed abode. The application of the provision, in that case, was restricted until the complete implementation of the “extraordinary plan for prison construction”, but in any case no later than 31 December 2013 and was instead revived, with an even wider scope of application.
With this last intervention, then, the figure was introduced of the national guarantor for the rights of prisoners or others deprived of personal freedom, as well as new judicial proceedings before the supervising judge intended to ensure the protection of prisoners’ or detainees’ rights.
Without going into the merits of each provision, there is no doubt that they are an indicator of a malaise in the system which, as is clear from the “report on the state of human rights in prisons and in detention and holding centres” by the Extraordinary Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights of the Senate, is in an ongoing state of illegality (because of the violation of human rights). There is even widespread appeal to the concept of “tolerable capacity”, therefore, not a real capacity compatible with “normal” living conditions respectful of the fundamental rights of detainees, but a capacity intended in some ways to justify and incorporate the natural overcrowding of the facilities.
And it is this overcrowding, combined with the shortage of warders, that lies behind a “non-application” of treatment in the aforementioned sense, that is, the realisation of “a satisfactory programme of activities (work, education, sport)” that, as observed by the CPT “is of paramount importance for the wellbeing of prisoners”.
This situation, in fact, marks a return to the concept of prison as a place of segregation in which, among other things, those on remand are often placed as well. With regard to this the European Commission presented a Green Paper on the application of EU criminal justice legislation in the field of detention whose problems are considered as “a relevant aspect of the rights that must be safeguarded in order to promote mutual trust and ensure the smooth functioning of mutual recognition instruments” (European Commission, Brussels, 14 June 2011, the Green Paper on the application of EU criminal justice legislation in the field of detention).
This is not the place in which to examine in detail the many decisions with which the European Court of Human Rights has intervened on the subject of sentences, their implementation and above all their compatibility with the fundamental rights of individuals.
For our purposes it should be pointed out how with a succession of decisions, think of the Sulejmanovic affair (European Court of Human Rights, sect. II, 16 July 2009, Sulejmanovic v. Italy), the Court of Strasbourg has stated that the sentence should never exceed “the minimum necessary”, that is, it should never affect non-negotiable positions including the “concrete assessment of the overall life of the prisoner in the prison”, with respect to which the “flagrant” lack of personal space in itself has to be considered as constituting inhumane and degrading treatment.
And Italy’s condemnation was reiterated in the famous Torreggiani judgment (European Court of Human Rights, II, 8 January 2013, Torreggiani and Others v. Italy) which the same court defined in terms of a “pilot judgment” (whose procedure, based on Article 46 ECHR, and governed by Article 61 of the Rules of Court, has been affirmed since in Broniowski v. Poland, 22 June 2004, no. 31443/96, and which can be activated insofar as the case shows that there is a structural problem due to a practice, destined to impact a large number of people, which is incompatible with the ECHR) by which Italy is condemned “sans retard” to provide the development of an “appeal or a set of effective remedies, which have preventive and compensatory effects and really provide adequate and sufficient redress of violations of the Convention resulting from prison overcrowding in Italy”.
In the same judgment the Court, precisely in relation to the hypothesis of overcrowding in para. 76, identified the parameters with regard to which that level of habitability recommended by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (C.P.T.) must be considered breached, corresponding to 4 square metres per person. A violation that, according to the Court, infringes Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
But, in fact, it is only with the Prison Plan, launched in 2010 and entrusted to a special commissioner, that an attempt has been made, unsuccessfully, to resolve the problem. This plan has run aground on the desks of the criminal judges.
In conclusion, a quick look at the issue of outsourcing with regard to various sorts of problems primarily related to the absence of specific legislation and practices in the sense of the non-use of public tendering, in sharp contrast to the recognised “public” nature of the prison system.
The levels on which outsourcing might manifest itself are essentially two: one related to the building of the structure and the other relating to the management of the same in whole or in part.
With regard to the first, in 2001, the possibility was introduced for the prison administration to make use of project financing.
Two years later “Patrimonio dello Stato S.p.A.” – a public company, controlled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, for the management of public assets being sold – established Dike Aedifica S.p.A. for the realisation of prisons contributing “to the development of the prison system by using historical prison buildings to provide financial leverage for modern prison infrastructure, thereby reducing the burden on public finances”. Many criticisms have been levelled against this system also in relation to the increase in costs that followed.
In general, it is impossible not to notice the absence of a well-defined regulatory framework on the subject, in which emerges a cardinal principle of public management of prisons with regard to security, the management of the treatment and transfer of detainees, while not ruling out the involvement of private companies, in the form of non-profit organisations, in those institutions of “attenuated custody” such as the Castelfranco Emilia Institute.
This is an isolated case of a work house converted into an institution of reclusion for drug addicts, in 2001, as part of the Equal project. The handover to a private party, a religious cooperative, of the management of the establishment, in order, among other things, to experiment with new forms of organisation, took place in the absence of a tendering process, and is governed by a partnership agreement which, however, relates only to accounting and administrative controls; but despite managing an essentially public activity, publicly funded, there are no forms of management control.
Although this experience presents substantially positive results, there have been problems in relation, for example, to the regulation of relations with the staff – public – who come into contact with the structure. Think, for example, of the health professionals involved in the certification of drug addiction which, because of a series of regulatory interventions, can also be certified by private employees who, unlike public ones, might have an interest in certifying a state of dependence even on light drugs.
There can be no doubt that, given the involvement of fundamental rights, the outsourcing of sovereign functions such as those at issue here leads to a certain perplexity. In the report of the subcommittee “for the fight against discrimination and for the protection of minorities”, it is stressed how private management could bring into question the observance of fundamental guarantees, especially in the absence of a clear system of checks and responsibility. And this is certainly the risk that the Italian system runs as well, in the absence of clear rules, essential in these cases, in respect of which, at present, we can hardly make positive judgments about the degree of civilisation in Italy, especially if we were to employ Voltaire’s maxim “Do not let me see your palaces but your prisons, since it is from them that we measure the degree of civilization of a nation”.
Royal Decree of 19 September 1860, regulating penal colonies; Royal Decree of 27 January 1861, no. 4681 regulating judicial prisons; Royal Decree of 13 January 1862, no. 413 regulating prisons; Royal Decree of 28 August 1862, no. 813, regulating houses of confinement; Royal Decree of 27 November 1863, n. 1018, regulating custody houses.
The regulation of the sentence was treated by the first and second Subcommittee and by the Commission for the Constitution and by the Assembly in plenary session. The debate was held within the first subcommittee on 17, 18 and 19 September and 10 December 1946; within the second subcommittee on 12 December 1946, and the Commission for the Constitution on 25 January 1947, to arrive in the Constituent Assembly on 15 April 1947.
From a reading of the Assembly what emerges in the face of the Right Honourable Togliatti’s proposal to do away with the death penalty and life imprisonment, is the Right Honourable Tupini, President of the First Subcommittee, stressing that “the abolition of life imprisonment could be an incentive to commit terrible crimes, having suppressed the only penalty, that of death, capable of frightening great criminals”. And again in the meeting of 10 December 1946, the Right Honourable Aldo Moro stressed the “need for the preservation of human society which is compromised by the proliferation of heinous acts. Having abolished the death penalty, life imprisonment remained the only inhibition to crime”.
In the prison of San Vittore, the first bloody revolt in 1946 took place at Easter. On that occasion, the inmates, led by the bandit Enzo Barbieri and former Fascist leader Caradonna, took possession of the whole prison, holding twenty prisoners hostage. A few months later, on 18 August, the inmates of the fourth arm held an assembly, made possible by the absence of doors and locks, to protest against the reduction of food rations ordered by the Allied authorities.
Right Honourable Maffei, morning sitting of the Constituent Assembly, 15 April 1947.
Consider, for example, the provisions adopted in the period of terrorism or the special provisions adopted in the fight against the Mafia.
G. Vassalli, “Funzioni e insufficienza della pena”, in
P. Nuvolone, “La prevenzione nella teoria generale del diritto penale”, in
The Implementing Regulation was adopted the following year – Presidential Decree no. 431 of 29 April 1976.
The need to achieve individualisation of treatment in relation to the specific conditions of the subject and their particular needs has to be acknowledged, in order to ensure that with the expiry of the sentence the best result can be obtained for the offender’s recovery and reintegration into society.
The district and county prisons also ensure the custody of persons detained or arrested by the forces of law and order and that of prisoners in transit.
F. Lupone,
It should be observed that in addition to compulsory education, which is offered in prison, it is foreseen that penal institutions can establish secondary schools, with the obligation to transfer detainees who have shown an intention to continue their studies to institutions at which these courses are offered. The penultimate paragraph of Article 19 of the Penitentiary Regulations also expressly provides that “access to university courses and the equivalent is to be facilitated and correspondence, radio and television courses are to be favoured”. In addition, the last paragraph includes the undertaking of the prison administration to facilitate “access to publications in the library, with full freedom in the choice of reading”.
This same decree established the Special Prisons – “Maximum Security” Institutes. In three years, the following special prisons came into operation: Asinara, Cuneo, Novara, Fossombrone, Trani, Favignana, Palmi, Badu ‘e Carros, Termini Imerese, Ascoli Piceno; and for women, Latina, Pisa and Messina; furthermore special sections were also set up in all the judicial prisons of the large cities.
Among the founders of Gip (Groupe d’Informations sur les Prisons), Michel Foucault was the only one who had researched internment practices during his academic career, and he would also be the only one to develop his militancy in a new field of research concerning prisons. In 1971, when the Gip was created, Foucault’s the
All the social oppositions described by Foucault in his work — normal/abnormal, healthy/pathological, mad/reasonable … — were built on the contrast between inclusion and exclusion. To change prison and to make it more livable we need not wait for solutions suggested by jurists, historians, or philosophers, but, according to Foucault, we only have to listen to the prisoners and give them the political role in our institutions they are denied. Those who study societies, at all levels, have a different task to achieve and a specific duty to perform: “to delineate a critique of power explaining the processes by which contemporary society marginalizes an important part of the population”.
Less than fifty years ago a series of struggles and uprisings shook French prisons: hunger strikes, mutinies, hostage-taking. In 1970 a great wave of arrests began affecting youth movements in France, aimed especially at the Maoist faction from May 1968, and the staff of the magazine “La Cause du Peuple”.
After the so-called
The original Gip
The text was direct and concise: one page only, denouncing the lack of information about prisons and the right to know how they worked, the living conditions, the state of the buildings, the situation concerning hygiene, food, medical care, laboratories and so on. The authors stated that they wanted to know why people go to prison and how people can get out of prison. In short, their aim was to unearth a reality that was “one of the hidden regions of our social system, one of the black boxes of our lives”.
Other prominent French intellectuals joined the Gip: such as Daniel Defert, Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Paul Sartre. Nevertheless, most of its activists were relatives of common prisoners and, as Daniel Defert recalled, within a few years the organization was able to promote 35 prison uprisings.
Inside the Gip, Michel Foucault was the only one who had researched internment practices during his academic career —
Hence it was unavoildable that he should be pressured more than any other member of the Gip to take a public stance concerning prisons not only as a militant, but also as a theorist. In an interview given in 1972 to a Swiss magazine he said that he had been asked “a thousand times” to write an article concerning the best possible prison, and that a thousand times he had replied it was completely beyond his goals and interests (Foucault,
Yet that relationship not only existed, as he himself recognized soon after in the same interview, but it was also something that made him “uncomfortable” towards his research object. His militancy was reflected in the theoretical work which, on the other hand, responded to some extent to a feeling of unease in the face of those processes of discrimination and massive imprisonment that emerged in police reactions to May 1968: ghosts of a past artificially and surprisingly reactivated in the present.
This problematic link between Foucault’s militant activity and theory has left a significant trace in the opening chapter of In recent years, prison revolts have occurred throughout the world. There was certainly something paradoxical about their aims, their slogans and the way they took place. They were revolts against an entire state of physical misery that is over a century old: against cold, suffocation and overcrowding, against decrepit walls, hunger, physical maltreatment. But they were also revolts against model prisons, tranquillizers, isolation, the medical or educational services. Were they revolts whose aims were merely material? Or contradictory revolts: against the obsolete, but also against comfort; against the warders, but also against the psychiatrists? In fact, all these movements — and the innumerable discourses that the prison has given rise to since the early nineteenth century — have been about the body and material things. What has sustained these discourses, these memories and invectives are indeed those minute material details. One may, if one is so disposed, see them as no more than blind demands or suspect the existence behind them of alien strategies. In fact, they were revolts, at the level of the body, against the very body of the prison. What was at issue was not whether the prison environment was too harsh or too aseptic, too primitive or too efficient, but its very materiality as an instrument and vector of power; it is this whole technology of power over the body that the technology of the ‘soul’ — that of the educators, psychologists and psychiatrists — fails either to conceal or to compensate, for the simple reason that it is one of its tools. I would like to write the history of this prison, with all the political investments of the body that it gathers together in its closed architecture. Why? Simply because I am interested in the past? No, if one means by that writing a history of the past in terms of the present. Yes, if one means writing the history of the present. (Foucault
Those who are interested in Foucault’s thought could find enough cues in this passage to outline his philosophical research: First, the program of a history of the present time; then, the emphasis given to the body’s technology and the idea of the body itself as a point of intersection between power and individuals; moreover the belief that all institutions, no matter how refined and evolved, reflect a multiplicity of contingent power relationships; and finally, the consequent fragility of every institution, always vulnerable to criticism able to reconstruct its historicity and to recognize its weaknesses.
Those who prefer to escape these boundaries and to recognize Foucault’s contribution to understanding prisons can focus however on expressions that define some areas of forces and conflicts. First, there is the tension between the energy of riots and the physical materiality from which they are born; then, the contrast between the body of prison and the body of prisoners. Furthermore, we find the rebellion against punishments and against medical treatments, i. e. against degradation and against comfort. Finally, there is the gap between the technology of the body and the technology of the soul.
These conflicts outline the horizon of what Foucault considered crucial to the history of what he called “the carceral”. Only if we deny the contingency of our penal institutions, can we think that detention belongs to the nature of our social ties. Only without questioning the historical sense of imprisonment as such, can we conceive of prison as a constant phenomenon undergoing updates or improvements over time. The real point of juncture between Foucault’s theoretical work and his militant activity in the Gip lies where the prisoner revolts illuminate the historicity of our penal institutions. The prisoners fight against the “intolerable”, a word often repeated in the documents of the Gip. And intolerable, according to Foucault, is exactly what magnifies the contrast between the historical contingency of an institution and its actual power in the present moment. To deal with crime, contemporary societies have not yet come up with anything different than detention. But the prison itself becomes intolerable when internment turns into a tool to split our society into groups and to control them, submitting the bodies of the marginalized to harsh constraints. Prison, therefore, is not intolerable when dirty or drooping and tolerable when healthy. Since prison conveys a form of power, its impact always concerns the way in which this power is conceived and exercised.
In the transition between the eighteenth and nineteenth century, a set of different factors radically transformed the system of punishment and the practice of internment: the emergence of a series of control mechanisms required the establishment of a central system of management which, in turn, required the creation of a network of peripheral systems not necessarily prison-like. “A general system of surveillance and imprisonment penetrates the entire thickness of society, going from large prisons built according to the Panopticon model to little patronage companies, and finds its point of application not only among delinquents but also among abandoned children, orphans, apprentices, high school students, workers, and so on” (Foucault,
All the scandals arising in the transition between the eighteenth and nineteenth century relating to the economy of punishment, all the new justifications of the right to punish established from a moral or from a political point of view, were simply consequences of this shift in our consideration of the human body: to become useful, it had to be protected from the injuries of the former penal system, and even educated and trained for new kinds of work, which required some skill and a lot of physcal resistance. Foucault describes the birth of the concept of “workforce” in terms which are very close to Hannah Arendt’s book
In the first decades of the nineteenth century it was already clear that the execution of a prison sentence was not strictly regulated by law. “The carceral” was a sort of independent power which ruled inside prisons establishing, with no recourse to any decision of a court, the daily life of each prisoner: their right to excercise, their contacts with other prisoners or with visitors coming from the external world, their mail exchanges, their food. Hardness or softness of punishment was decided in the prison itself, where authorities ruled as local kings. In 1818 French politician Élie Decazes said that the law did not enter prisons and at that time the whole system of imprisonment was perceived as an enigmatic danger. Mixing prisoners condemned for different crimes, the prison was supposed to produce a homogeneous community and an organized group of enemies, all united against external society. Moreover, giving the prisoners food, clothes and a salary for the work they did, the prison offered a better life than that of the workers in factories. The prison therefore was seen as an institution that far from discouraging, encouraged crime and made it stronger. The circle of “the carceral” was sometimes denounced in order to look for alternative punishments. The practice of deportation, also associated with colonization and with the composition of colonial armies following the model of the Foreign Legion, was an attempt to avoid the inconveniences that arose from imprisonment. But also internal reform of prisons was implemented, even if the most successful change was the transformation of the “carceral circle” into an anthropological category. The first project was to establish a “science of prisons”, supported for instance in France by Julius and Charles Lucas around 1836, but the final outcome was a new “science of criminals”, a scientific discipline built on elements from physiology, physiognomy, psychiatry, psychopathological analysis and sociology (Foucault, What was criticized about the prison at the beginning of the nineteenth century (to create a population of outcasts and offenders) is now taken as inevitable. Not only it is accepted as a fact, but it is also established as a foundational factor. The “delinquency” effect produced by the prison becomes the problem of delinquency to which the prison must give an appropriate answer. This is the criminological turning of the carceral circle. (Foucault,
The affirmation of this new science of criminals belongs to the same period in which public debate about problems of imprisonment stopped. With his typical pleasure for well chosen historical dates, Foucault places this period around 1848. At that point, prison became one of the most important tools to redefine the relationship between power and body, now considered as the vector of the workforce. Therefore prison is not only an institution that can be changed or improved depending on different historical periods. It is rather a technology of anthropological and social change and, at the same time, the measurement of how a society treats its marginal phenomena, expanding its own borders to include them or simply rejecting them.
Let us consider, for instance, the chronicles of Spring 2016 and the reports on migrant resettlements in the Mediterranean Sea. At the end of May, discussions surged about the establishment of floating hotspots proposed by the Italian government to deal with the expected rise of migration in the coming months: the use of ships to contain and accommodate people coming from the Middle East and Africa during their identification. After this selection, which would occur outside the physical territory of the country, migrants would be brought to shore, or expelled if they were not allowed to stay. The European Commission was favorable to this solution, very similar to an old proposal of the Italian right party called the Northern League, who advocated the use of platforms abandonded at sea by petrol and gas companies as temporary identification camps. Humanitarian agencies, however, were against this decision, and so was the catholic Church: Bishop Nunzio Galantino, chairman of the Italian Episcopal Conference, declared in an interview that hotspots are detention places, prisons that cannot be an answer for migrants who always have the right to apply for asylum. The use of ships makes it impossible to follow procedures according to the laws of international protection: “It is unthinkable to use ships stationed in the Mediterranean to hold thousands of people waiting for an unspecified destination. Unless you want to bring them back to the ports of Libya and Egypt, condemning them to new forms of exploitation” (Galantino,
Ships as floating prisons would not have been conceivable prior to these forms of migration, and especially before the walls suggested by governments in Austria and in Hungary, before the European policy of abandonment of migrants to the countries bordering the Mediterranean, in short before clear or implied new political decisions about the treatment of marginal people. One can imagine that in future these floating hotspots can become more or less comfortable, that they may be improved with single cabins and air conditioning, or that the ships can become similar to luxury cruiseships with pools, dancing halls and high quality restaurants. The fact of detention, however, cannot be removed from this reality, and we must simply understand the kind of reaction it implies, the kind of political decision, the kind of physical treatment of marginalized people escaping from their homes.
The same is true for prison. You can change or improve it, but the relationship between illegality and imprisonment overshadows each reform project and each discussion about the limits or the tasks of prisons. Foucault shows that reform acts are always part of the prison considered as an historical phenomenon: They follow the evolution of the prison from the very beginning. Of course any society has the need to defend itself against illegality and crime, and of course those who live in prisons a shorter or larger part of their lives are interested — and competent — in their own improvement. A fundamental idea of the Gip’s work was not to develop new theories about the optimal prison, but to ask prisoners what they wanted and needed.
Why do we think that prison is the best possibile reaction to illegality? Do we still need prisons or could we imagine another way to face and to limit crimes? In the age of discipline, i.e. a general system of control and punishment, the production of delinquency created by prison was not an inconvenience, but precisely its task, because defining and categorizing marginal people was an important piece of that system of government. Imprisonment, according to Foucault, was one of the physical elements which sparked the psychology of the subject and connected the exercise of power to the education and the use of body. But today? Do we still live in a disciplinary society? Did we not pass through the age of “biopolitics” and through a significant reduction of what we expect from prisons? Is the prison basically an anachronism? Is its outdated existence what the Gip claimed intolerable? Or do we still work towards the production of delinquency, as is suggested by the example of the floating hotspots for migrants?
Discontinuity is one of the leading concepts of Foucault’s philosophy. Rejecting the traditional tendency to read history straightforwardly as a chain of facts and consequences, refusing to adopt evolution and progress as main categories of historical movement, Foucault translated in his own terms the idea of “rupture” introduced by Gaston Bachelard in the field of epistemology. Even the “long periods” emphasized by the new history (
In Foucault’s perspective prison is not a constant reality, it is not a historical entity with some variation over time, the hardness of which depends on changes in the severity of punishments. Prison is rather the physical expression of a social gesture, imprisonment, which has been applied in different ways from time to time, actualizing differences in the logic of exclusion in our societies.
Since the Middle Ages, imprisonment has gone from a medical and religious treatment of disease and diversity to a technology to punish crime. But in the historical turning point of the eighteenth century, prison was shaped as an instrument of knowledge, a method by which power defined and captured individuals. It was not a corollary of penal theory, but the expression of the bright rationality and ethics of a new social system determined through a broad control mechanism. Inside this system, prison was an institution of respect people could be proud of. A “more gentle way of punishment” has established itself speaking the language of human dignity. In fact, it was functional to a form of power which had no more interest in destroying bodies. The old spectacle of the law glaringly torturing criminals was replaced by a timetable in prisons and at work, by a meticulous system of surveillance, widespread and rarely visible.
History, however, did not end with the advent of this system — disclipine does not represent the last stage in our power relations. During the second half of the seventies, Michel Foucault devoted a large part of his research to what he called “biopolitics”, a kind of power system in which punishment does not play a central role. The age of discipline needed a strong social order provided by institutions that looked very similar to each other: schools, factories, hospitals and of course prisons. Biopower acts in another way: not forcing or guiding processes but simply regulating them.
Has the prison, during the time of biopolitics, the same role as before? Is it not outdated or, at least, uneconomic? What really justifies the massive recourse to prison that occurred in Western countries after 1968? Do we still need all these prisons?
Michel Foucault never advocated the abolition of prisons nor focused his thoughts on the best possible method to punish crime. He left open the theoretical question of our contemporary need for prisons, meanwhile he devoted his attention to particular cases, concrete problems, specific uprisings in French prisons. “If I take care of the Gip,” he said during the already quoted 1972 interview, “It is because I prefer actual work to academic discussions and to the compilation of books”. Again Foucault sought to draw a clear line between his research and his commitment as an activist: “Only concrete political action on behalf of prisoners makes sense to me” (Foucault,
But this emphasis on the distance between theory, historical research and action is, after all, a theoretical option that Foucault would have evolved over the years and that his militancy has, in a certain way, anticipated. According to him, power consists of relationships and is not a substance, but something that circulates. Hence, power cannot be changed by a single act, no matter how striking or spectacular, but only by a series of little actions, as if only a positive microphysics of political action would be the right counterpart to the microphysics of power itself.
Political action has to be local, punctual, oriented towards single aims that people can achieve, not towards utopic horizons. The Gip wanted to give a voice back to the prisoners. This, said Foucault, is always “the first thing to do”: to hear their voices, their requests, their protests, because “when prisoners talk, we are immediately at the heart of the problem”. However, people are so unaccostumed to listening to what prisoners have to say, that they often prefer to deal with an abstract representation of reality akin to common ideas about prisons: uprisings, rebellions, protests on roofs and so on (Foucault,
In June 1971 the Gip published the first
In Foucault’s words, when prisoners speak about details — whether they have a television in their cells or not, whether they are allowed to play football or not — they are not really questioning simple trifles, but “the condition of the marginal commoner in a capitalist world”, the condition of “people who have lost themselves”, and for whom there is no need to find theories, but spaces in which they could be listened to and have opportunities to talk (Foucault,
The carceral circle has to be detected and understood to be transcended. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, prison was considered responsible for the creation of delinquency, and to fight delinquency Western societes required more and more prisons. The real problem, according to Foucault, is not to imagine the perfect prison, or to abolish prisons, but to criticize the way in which we perceive and treat marginal people. Answering a specific question asked by his interviewer (“Do you know a good prison?”), it was easy for Foucault to say that much better prisons than in France existed: “for instance in Sweden”. But also with better prisons, or by abolishing prisons, marginalization doesn’t go away and our societies will simply find other ways, other technology, other means to isolate a part of the population and to define it as a residue in relationship to the good part of the community. All the social oppositions described by Foucault in his work — normal/abnormal, healthy/pathological, mad/reasonable … — were built according to the same pattern.
Prison has been the main technology with which our societies produce and manage marginality for less than three centuries. Therefore, it can be considered a recent invention and, as such, still relatively young. To change prison and to make it more livable we don’t have to wait for solutions suggested by jurists, historians or philosophers. We only have to listen to the prisoners themselves and give them the political role that they are denied in our institutions. Those who study societies, on all levels, have a different task to achieve and a specific duty to perform: “To delineate a critique of power explaining the processes by which contemporary society marginalizes an important part of the population”. (Foucault,