PRISON DESIGN AND PRISONER BEHAVIOR:

PHILOSOPHY, ARCHITECTURE, AND VIOLENCE

Barbara A. Thompson
Sociology/Anthropology Honors Thesis
Oberlin College
May 1, 1980
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ............................................... i
Section One
Part 1: Penal Philosophy .......................... 1
Part 2: Early European Origins
and Development .................... 13
Part 3: General U. S. Prison
History, 1790-1930 ................. 20
Section Two
Part 1: Prison Styles, 1910-1980 ................. 49
Part 2: Contemporary Architectural
Examples, Features, and
Conditions ............. 62
Sect ion Three
Part 1: Psychological Implications of
Imprisonment ........... 83
Part 2: Crowding in Prison ....................... 97
Part 3: V iolence in Pr is on ...................... 115
Problems and Recommendations ............................ 134
Bibliography ............................................ 146
INTRODUCTION
"A total institution may be defined as a place of
residence and work where a large number of like-
situated individuals, cut off from the wider society
for an appreciable period of time, together lead an
enclosed, formally administered round of life ...
encompassing or total character is symbolized
barrier to social intercourse with the outside and
i.
to departure that is often built right into the phy-
sical plant, such as locked doors, high walls, barbed
wire, cliffs, water, forests, or moors" (Coffman 1961:
xiii-4).
Without doubt, prisons best fit Goffman's conception of a
"total institution." Prisons bring to mind an array of
images for different people; some may think of a warehouse
for criminals where maximum bodies per minimum space is the
rule, while others see a drab and gloomy monastery where re-
pentance is fostered. Both notions are archaic, yet both
are represented by architectural configurations which con-
tinue to function at this very time.
The majority of the public does its best to avoid all
thought of prisons. Prisons reflect an ugly side of human
nature, in terms of those who violate social norms and in
terms of the manner in which society chooses to sanction
those violations. Only when something newsworthy occurs---
most frequently, a riot---does the public take notice. Nine
years ago it was Attica, and in February it was New Mexico.
Aggressive behavior, en masse, seems periodically charac-
teristic of correctional institutions in the United states.
In actuality, aggressive behavior at the individual level
is exceedingly common in prison; in a number of institutions
it is positively an everyday occurrence. In the eyes of
many, this is not a surprising fact: prison inmates have
ii.
already been established by the court system as having com-
mitted crimes against society. Further unsocial actions
may well be expected, may they not? And yet, I am not con-
vinced.
All behavior, Flynn notes, "occurs within the limits
of specific physical surroundings and is to a certain de-
gree affected by it" (1976:120). In other words, no
behavioral act can be wholly removed from the environment
in which it takes place: that is its context. An action
is often better understood when its physical setting is
taken into consideration. The aim here is to inspect the
psychological effects of prison, and prison violence, in
terms of prison environment and desiEn.
I contend that the architectural environment of the
prison can directly affect prisoner behavior in terms of
violence and pathology. Certain design configurations can
promote inmate aggression and negative psychological effects.
Thus, I shall explore the physical and philosophical state
of the prison briefly through history and intensively at
present, and shall attempt to present suggestions for the
modification of these effects via change in the architectu-
ral environment.
My investigation shall commence with an overview of
penal philosophy through time. Then, I shall present a
brief consideration of the development of prison styles
from early Europe to this century in the United States.
This historical perspective will be valuable in helping
to establish an understanding of the way in which present
I
iii.
correctional styles evolved.
The next major section will be concerned with the basic
architectural designs seen in American prisons constructed
since approximately 1910, and contemporary examples and
features of these facilities. Here, the aim will be to
depict the state of the prison at present.
The following section will be comprised of three parts:
an examination of the psychological implications of impri-
sonment; a look at crowding in prison; and a consideration
of violence in prison. This section will be based largely
on various types of experimental studies, of which few have
specifically concerned the issues of violence and pathology
as related to the physical environment. Therefore, there
are certain unavoidable limitations in the data.
Finally, I shall present a concluding chapter in which
some specific problems are addressed and recommendations
made. Perhaps the essential thrust of this work is to show
that the architectural design of a correctional institution
can affect not only the behavior of the prisoner but the
success or failure of the institution as a whole. This is
what must be recognized by prison planners and administra-
tors if prisons are to be improved.
Despite its length, this is truly an introductory work
on the subject of prison design. In many areas the level
of analysis is low due to the relative inexperience of the
author in prison matters. I was very fortunate to be able
to visit several prisons and jails during my research; the
information garnered through this fieldwork was truly in-
valuable to my understanding of the state of the prison
today. I would like so much to thank the individuals re-
sponsible for enabling me to carry out my research within
the actual institutions, but in order to protect the ano-
nymity of the facilities to which I refer in this work I
must regretfully refrain. Nevertheless, to these unnamed
persons I am most grateful.
iv.
As the vast majority of prison inmates are male (96.6
per cent in 1970), this work will deal predominately with
men's correctional institutions. Women's prisons will be
included as well, but not to as great an extent: they
require an in-depth examination all their own.
Let us now begin to analyze the matter of prison
design and prisoner behavior.
Section I
Part 1
PENAL PHILOSOPHY
'"
,
1.
Through time, several basic purposes of penal institu-
tions have been noted. These are: punishment, deterrence,
quarantine (removal of the offender from the community); re-
habilitation, and, most recently. reintegration of the offen-
der into the community. Such purposes are necessarily in-
fluenced by a society's definition of correction, and its
moral-ethical orientation: the perceived value of security
as compared to individual rights (Nagel 1973:12).
Imprisonment has been the dominant mode of criminal
sanction in the United States for approximately two hundred
years. Over time, penal philosophies have waxed, waned, com-
peted, and---consistently---been replaced by new, purportedly
superior ideologies. Prison design has reflected these devel-
opments to varying degrees. More often than not, changes in
penal philosophy, and therefore institutional design, have
occurred when officials and administrators have arrived at
the realization that the systems and goals of imprisonment
prevailing at the time were neither effective nor realistic.
Therefore, penologists and architects have periodically
turned to new and innovative constructs in an effort to
create a prison which will serve its predicted purpose of
reform, rehabilitation, or what have you. The history of
penology has been characterised largely by false starts
which were permitted to continue to grow despite inherent
weaknesses in the plan. In short, correctional methods have
generally failed to accomplish their ends, but the officials
and administrators persist in trying, trying again.
2.
Another reason behind changes in corrections and prison
reform has been the historically evident ebb and flow of pub-
lic interest. In the 1780's, the 1830's, the 1880's, and the
1930's, prisons received significant public attention in
America. The first period of heed was due to a prison re-
form movement instigated in Europe by John Howard; the next
two stemmed from the introduction of momentous new penal
methods, supposedly destined to solve all the problems in
the field of corrections; and in the 1930's, the "Big House"
type movies produced by Hollywood were responsible for the
increased public interest. At present the major concern
is with the civil rights of inmates. Apparently, public
attention comes at fifty-year intervals; perhaps this decade,
particularly because it started off with the bloody New
Mexico State Penitentiary riot, will become mindful of
prison conditions and the need for change. At least, we
may hope so.
It should be emphasized here that until the mid-1700's
in this country and Europe, imprisonment was quite rare as
a form of punishment; its early origins will be discussed
further on, but these primitive examples of confinement were
unusual for their time. Instead, capital and corporal
punishment were the basic methods of sanctioning criminals.
These physical punishments have essentially disappeared
today, but some places---South Africa and Ceylon, for ex-
ample---retained the use of the whip as a legal punishment
as late as the 1960's (Sellin 1972:11).
At the most basic level of consideration, the two
3.
conflicting constructs of penal philosophy have been puni-
tive theory versus rehabilitative theory. Essentially, the
two are so closely interwoven that they cannot easily be sepa-
rated; still, rehabilitation holds ideological sway at this
point in time (American Correctional Association 1972:22).
The two most readily identifiable purposes of punishment
through time have been: a) the conservation and protec-
tion of the values or social interests which the offender
has failed to respect; and b) the effecting of repentance
by the offender, in order to "save his soul." Of these pur-
poses, the first may presumably be accomplished via execu-
tion, deterrence, or rehabilitation; and the human motives
behind them might be determined to be vengeance, exploita-
tion, compassion for sinners, or a desire for therapy (Sellin
1972:8-9). Architecture has mirrored these motives and aims;
very frequently, penal philosophy is the most influential
consideration determining correctional housing, particu-
larly in this country.
For example, from 1830 to 1930, the tenets of prison
discipline remained essentially the same: strenuous, puni-
tive labor; general deprivation but for the barest necessi-
ties; a monotonous existence; uniformity; corporal punish-
ment; degradation; isolation; no responsibility; adherance
to petty rules; and no communication with society at large.
It is no wonder in light of these views that inmates were
housed in cage-like cells during this time period---offenders
were consistently dehumanized by the penal system. In fact,
this philosophy worked so effectively against the normal
[
4.
person's needs that it frequently led to the development of
pathological personalities in prisoners (Gill 1972.112-113).
During this time period, America experienced several
changes in penal philosophy. The beginnings of these ideo-
logical alterations actually began in the late 1700's, when
a particularly innovative jail was established in Philadelphia.
This was the Walnut Street Jail, and it brought with it the
new Quaker concepts of penitence for criminals through cer-
tain forms of incarceration. Walnut Street incorporated
into its penal scheme both congregate rooms, where inmates
interacted as a group, and individual cells, where each per-
son was completely isolated. As shall be seen, Walnut Street
attracted considerable attention, and within the next quarter-
century or so a new system was devised, based on the congre-
gate aspect of the Philadelphia jail.
The new prison, located at Auburn, New York, called it-
self a "penitentiary." Its designers had selected what they
regarded to be Walnut Street's best features. congregate
workrooms and individual cells. The Quaker code of seclu-
sian with the Bible to instill repentance was stricly en-
forced, but only during the night and certain hours o:f the
day; the practice of congregate labor was instated with a
rule of absolute, total silence. Not long after Auburn's
influence spread, another radical prison configuration was
introduced in Philadelphia---this one combining silent reflec-
tion on the Bible with perpetual solitary confinement and in-
dividuallabor. These two prison systems were to compete for
many years; in the 1870's, yet another novel prison system
5.
was to appear: the reformatory, beginning in Elmira, New York,
stressing education and hard labor. All shall be discussed in
a later chapter on prison history.
During the late 1800's, the significance of labor in cor-
rective philosophy was considerable. Punitive labor was not
as important to prison administrators as productive labor.
Since an economic perspective has dominated corrections in
this country from the start, the making of saleable items by
inmates was very attractive to officials, especially for de-
fraying operating costs. Therefore, from the late nineteenth
century through the first quarter of the twentieth, prisons
provided work for inmates and sold their institutionally-
made products on the open market. Private industries took
issue against this practice, complaining that the low prison
wages made competition from them unfair; in 1929 and 1935,
acts were passed restricting the sale of prison goods. State
laws followed, forcing prisons to largely abandon their in-
dustrial endeavors and return to an overriding concern with
punishment and custody (Reid 1976:520). This is much of the
reason for the appearance of idleness in many prisons today:
vocational programs typically accomodate only a small num-
ber of prisoners and the work experience is frequently of
limited value to the released individual.
The eradication of productive prison labor was not the
only change in corrections in the first part of this cen-
tury. Around 1916, penal philosophy began to change with
the help of two people. One was Thomas Mott Osborn, who
revealed at Auburn Prison in New York that the inmates knew
$.
more than the guards about tho workings of tho institution,
and subsequently went on to organize prisoner-starr discus-
sions regarding prisoners' problems: he defended the impor-
tance of the inmates' contribution to the efficient manage-
ment of the prison. The other was Dr. Bernard Glueck, who
began the practice of studying prisoners individually in or-
der that differential treatment be made possible. This grew
into the full-fledged system of classification, which finally
abolished the old concept that "all prisoners must be treated
alike" (Gill 1972: 11J) . The system of classifying prisoners,
so fundamental to corrections today, had some of its ear-
liest origins on Norfolk Island, a convict colony off the
coast of Australia during the late 1700's and early 1800's.
Here, Governor Manochie established a program which enabled
inmates to accrue good marks for good behavior and thereby
"elevate" themselves to a higher inmate grade (Hopkins 1918:
J). This was one of the first instances of administrative
differentiation between prisoners. even though it was the
inmates' own prerogative to initiate their advancement.
Classification in the twentieth century began the categori-
zing of inmates for incarceration in minimum-, medium-. and
maximum-security prisons, the architecture of which would
vary accordingly. Such a method of organization, it was
felt, would reduce costs as well as recidivism (McKelvey 1977'
282); however, this has not been the case. Minimum-security
institutions often cost more to construct than those of the
other custody levels, and recidivism remains fairly constant
in rate regardless of institutional configuration.
Indeed, corrections was undergoing distinct changes,
particularly in order to keep up with the ever-swelling in-
mate populations. As the American Correctional Association
remarks:
"The year 1930 may well be accepted as the beginning
of the modern era of prison progress. The event
that gave it greatest impetus was the complete
reorganization and reform of the Federal prisons
which were raised from the status of a backward,
neglected, and at times corrupt system to a posi-
tion of preeminence among the prisons of the
country. The rapid and steady progress made by
the Federal system from 1929-30 on had a strong
influence on state prisons, for it demonstrated
that practical programs of rehabilitation could
be set up and operated effectively with adequate
physical plants and, above all, qualified per-
sonnel (1972:29).
It is very true that the staff of an institution has a tre-
mendous effect on its relative success. Here arises a pos-
sible problem in the combination of ideologies involved in
operating a prison. Regardless of the humanity or modernness
of a prison's design, whatever philosophies produced that
form must be carried through in the behavior and attitudes
of everyone from the administrators to the correctional
officers if they are to have an impact. Similarly, the
inverse is true of a prison's physical plant affecting the
success of its program. Outdated institutions not built
to accomodate specialized psychological treatment, edu-
cational courses, or increased inmate freedom will inhibit
progress therein and simply frustrate the inmates and ad-
ministrators. A prison does not become a "correctional
institution" merely because that is what it is called:
a practical policy stemming from a rational philosophy of
8.
treatment must be applied to an appropriate physical struc-
ture if positive results are to be expected.
The penal philosophy which has tended to dominate in
this country is that of security and custody: most anything
is permissible in terms of physical plant, as long as it
keeps the prisoners in. It is quite apparent, however, that
these concerns fulfill only temporary needs---preparation for
return to the society is necessary as well. The recognition
ort' this being the case has led to the philosophy of rehabi-
litation and reintegration, calling for the provision of
education, labor, recreation, and treatment in prison (Reid
1976:523).
Howard B. Gill, a well-known specialist in correctional
architecture, perceived the coexistence of several conflicting
philosophies in the field of penology during the 1960's.
Three of them, still recognizable tOday, variously interpret
prisons as custodial, progressive, or professional. Custo-
dial prisons concentrate solely on the aspect of security,
and maintain strict regimens for their inmates. Progressive
prisons, currently the most popular type, include educational
and vocational programs, recreation, occasional entertain-
ment, libraries, religious facilities, and medical care.
(Unfortunately, says Gill, none of the programs provided
actually deal with the criminality of the residents, so
true rehabilitation rarely results.) Professional prisons,
regarded by Gill as representing the penal philosophy of the
future, are based on five elementary concepts as follows:
A. Security must be assured, but it must not overwhelm.
B. Inmates are to be classirieu as New, 'l'ractable,
Intractable, or Defective.
C. Tractable inmates' problems must first be solved,
then they must be societally acculturated.
D. Correctional staffs must function in five areas---
Executive, Administrative, Professional, Security,
and Treatment.
E. Prison architecture must meet all the preceding
concepts (Gill 1972:116).
Gill predicted the imminent use of these concepts as
long ago as 1962; as yet, they have not been adopted. How-
ever, in 1979. the Federal Bureau of Prisons instituted a
new designation system for use in assigning inmates to cor-
rectional facilities. Whereas the previously considered
criteria consisted only of the individual's age and length
of sentence, the additional aspects utilized now include his
or her history of violence, prior record, and the severity of
the offense. This new system enables more inmates to be
sent directly to minimum security facilities, and fewer to
be sent to penitentiaries (Committee on the Judiciary 1979:
5). It appears that steps are beine; taken to move away from
an ideology of incarceration for its own sake.
A somewhat confusing aspect of current corrections is
the discrepancy as to just what imprisonment tOday is in-
tended to accomplish. Rarely, it seems, is a specific enu-
meration of its objectives provided. Nevertheless, here are
the goals of the correctional field as set down by the Com-
mission on Accreditation for Corrections in 1977:
1. Protection of the public.
2. Assistance to the courts regarding of'fender dispo-
10.
sitions.
3. Assistance to juvenile and adult offenders to pro-
mote law-abiding behavior.
4. Provision of just and humane care in the manage-
ment of offenders.
5. Encouragement of and participation in research re-
garding the causes of delinquency and crime and the
effectiveness of correctional methods.
6. Provision of efficiency and economy in correc-
tional operations.
7. Promotion of and participation in coordinated
planning and administration of diversified pro-
grams, activities, and services of criminal
justice agencies.
8. Motivation of improved employee performance through
promotion of education and training opportunities
(Commission on Accreditation for Corrections 1977,ix).
The Commission does not specify how the law-abiding
behavior of offenders is to be promoted, except perhaps
through the "provision of just and humane care" in correc-
tional institutions.
Actually. little more can be expected. By now, it is
fairly well known that imprisonment as a route to reform or
rehabilitation is hardly efficacious; all it can be relied
upon to do is separate the offender from the rest of society
---and if the facility lacks sufficient security, it may
even fail in that. Rehabilitation is a very elusive goal.
This is why reintegration and preparing the inmate for reentry
into society constitute the phildsophy generally proclaimed
as underlying incarceration today (Cohen and Taylor 1972,
193). Work-release programs and halfway houses have been
introduced in the furtherance of this goal, as well as inten-
sive educational programs and even less restrictive visiting
11.
policies. Of major importance to a reintegrative aim are the
proximity of correctional institutions to major population
centers and universities, and the utilisation of a correc-
tional staff whose ethnicity and general background harmo-
nize with that of the inmates. Unfortunately, none of the
new correctional facilities visited by William Nagel's inves-
tigative team in 1972 had these characteristics. All of the
prisons had rural locations; none were accessible by public
transportation; and, whereas these institutions averaged a
45% minority population, the mean staff composition was only
8% minority members (Nagel 1973:48).
Essentially, then, American penal philosophy has moved
through various ideological phases. Here is a brief summary
of penological progress in terms of philosophy, which will
be covered in greater detail in the section regarding general
U. s. prison history.
From the time of the Revolutionary War through the mid-
1800's, the purpose of incarceration was segregation with
peni tenc.e, meant to punish. This was implemented first
through congregate, then solitary confinement with the Bible,
as shall be seen. By the 1870's, reformation was penology's
goal; confinement with the Bible was now combined with hard
labor under strict discipline. Reformation held sway until
approximately 1925 to 1930, when rehabilitation took pre-
cedence; here, prisoner classification was instituted in
prisons of varying design and prisoner mobility (Barnes and
Teeters 1945:641-642). At present, rehabilitation and reinte-
gration of the offender are the basic aims of corrections,
12.
with programs including work-release and community halfway
houses and emphasizing the approximation of normal living
in groups within a correctional setting.
With these basic penal philosophies in mind, let us
turn to a historical overview of the development of prison
design beginning in early Europe and leading up to the pre-
sent time in the United States.
Section I
Part 2
EARLY EUROPEAN
ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS
13
It is not possible to put an accurate date on the ear-
liest use of prisons. A prison may be thought of as a place
in which a person is kept, against his will, by an estab-
lished authority. In light of this, some form of prison
has probably existed at any given point in history. Al-
though imprisonment in early times seems to have been used
primarily as temporary detention prior to trial, execution,
or banishment, it served other purposes as well. Important
political prisoners were held rather than put to death; in-
carceration helped to encourage certain prisoners to pay
debts owed the government or powerful individuals; and, as
early as the 1300's, imprisonment itself was used as punish-
ment for lesser crimes (Johnston 1973:5).
The early prisons of the world were most often cells
or cages located within a fortress or castle, or in the
basement areas of public buildings. A particular early
"institution" about which information exists was the Mamer-
tine Prison of Rome, begun in about 640 B. c. by Ancus
Martius. Consisting of an extensive series of dungeons, it
was to be found underneath Rome's major sewer: the Cloaca
Maxima. In general, however, places of detention were small,
makeshift constructions inside fortified enclosures. Con-
trary to popular belief, dungeons in European and Middle
Eastern castles were originally intended as storage areas
(Johnston 1973:6).
It was only after the twelfth century that prison cells
were no longer provisional but began to be built specifi-
14.
cally for purposes of incarceration. These were mostly in-
stalled in the lower sections of castle towers, whose massive
walls were well suited to this function. Sometimes the tower
cells were windowed, sometimes not; all contained medieval
toilet shafts and, if necessary, a ventilation duct. When
gunpowder came to the Western world, castles lost their sig-
nificance as defensive structures; nevertheless, their cen-
tral locations in towns and thick, mostly windowless walls
made them useful as readymade jails. Capacities were typi-
cally low and periods of imprisonment brief (Johnston 1973:7).
Aside from castles, modern-day prisons had beginnings
in ecclesiastical structures. The early Christian church's
practice of granting asylum to criminals and fugitives was
in part the source of the concept of incarceration as a
replacement for death or physical mutilation. Used most
widely during the late medieval period but established long
before, solitary confinement as a puniShment was assigned to
sinners under church court jurisdiction. The basis of this
sanction was not only the Christian tenet of purification
through suffering, but also the creation of conditions under
which penitence would be encouraged (a concept destined to
to be fundamental to penology of the nineteenth century).
For example, the abbot could confine an errant monk to his
quarters with little difficulty. especially if each brother
had his own little cottage (which was sometimes the case).
This, then. may be regarded as the origin of the concept of
reformation of prisoners. It was also the antecedent of the
system of cellular imprisonment we observe today. Church
15
prisons consisted of only one or two detention rooms, even
in large monasteries, and seldom contained more than one In-
mate per chamber. Sometimes, depending on the religious
order, these chambers had no door or window---access was by
means of a ladder through a hole in the ceiling. Not only
abbeys but every episcopal palace and similar center of
church government as well had a prison (Johnston 1973:8-10).
In their era, church and castle cells sufficed for the
small number of individuals requiring detention, but times
were changing. With the decline of feudalism, the ranks of
petty criminals in sixteenth-century Europe greatly in-
creased; and to deal with them, the workhouse, or 'house of
correction,' was introduced. The idea here was that the
development of regular work habits would lead to rehabilita-
tion. 1557 saw the opening of the most famous example of
this type: the London Bridewell, so called for its location
at the site of an ancient holy well of medicinal water (Barnes
and Teeters 1945:477). By 1576, Parliament had passed a
bill requiring each county in England to build its own
"bridewell" (Johnston 1973:10).
On the whole, workhouses resembled any other large
public buildings of the day; those built during the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries were predominantly in the
form of a hollow square with common workrooms and sleeping
areas. A few, however, were innovative: the Juvenile House
of Correction of San Michele, in Rome, featured individual
cells opening onto a large, multi-purpose room---a design
quite like that of many contemporary institutions. Erected
16.
in about 1755, about fifty years after San Michele, was the
Milan House of Correction, whieh al:.;o incorporated sinGle
cells into its structure. This institution was about four
times the size of the former, and had separate wings for the
housing of male, female, and juvenile prisoners (Johnston
1973:11-13) .
While the fascinating aspects of these Italian prisons
lay in their physical design, developments in institutional
organization were not far away. In 1772, something of a revo-
lution in prison management took place when the Flemish gov-
ernment opened its house of correction at Ghent. Ghent
brought together the principles of solitary confinement at
night, separation of male and female inmates, and further
distinction on the grounds of age, offense type, and sen-
tence length. Extensive separation of prisoners in this
fashion was possible due to the floor plan of the prison---
it consisted of a giant octagon formed by eight self-
contained trapezoidal units. Each unit was intended to house
one particular type of offender (Johnston 1973:13).
The institutions at Rome, Milan, and Ghent were very
unusual for their day. They were not representative of
the majority of prisons in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries; most houses of correction simply had large con-
gregate rooms where all types of prisoners were thrown to-
gether under extremely overcrowded and unsanitary condi-
tions. Ironically, the overcrowding resulted in constant
depopulation of the prisons due to the spreading of typhus,
known at the time as "jail fever" (Johnston 1973:15).
As Pevsner notes, it was common practice through the
1700's to chain prisoners to the floor unless they were
17.
being held in a chamber from which escape was considered to
be impossible; also, prisoners were regularly tortured, often
by whipping (1976:160). This underscores the concept of the
day of imprisonment as punishment---indeed, as facilitating
even further punishment than that of incarceration.
Up until the late 1700's, there was no conscious, dis-
tinctive style of external or internal prison architecture.
As stated previously, prisons merely resembled other civic
buildings of similar size. This was very much a reflec-
tion of the fact that a coherent, truly purposive philo-
sophy of corrections had yet to be formulated. Then, in the
1780's, a penal reform movement was begun in England because
of the publication of John Howard's book, state of the Pri-
sons, in 1777. This work related Howard's observations of
prisons and jails of Britain and Europe, bringing to the at-
tention of the public the horrendous deterioration of most
penal institutions built durin,"; the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries. The reform movement spread to Europe and
the United States, causing the people to regard more seri-
ously the reasoning underlying prison construction. At this
time, imprisonment was beginning to be employed regularly as
a form of punishment in itself, without recourse to the whip
or other instruments of torture. This constituted a rather
innovative usage of prisons; its ramifications were in many
ways unknown (Johnston 1973:16).
At the time of John Howard's investigations, individual
18.
cell confinement was rarely implemented due to prohibitive
costs; the guards and "governor," or warden, merely kept a
close watch over the prisoners in the common areas. This
practice of continual surveillance was the byword of prison
administration and design at this point in history: as op-
posed to the past, prisoners could be "protected" from each
other's corruptive and injurious behavior. Howard strongly
advocated the separation of prisoners in order to ensure
such protection. In addition, the reformers concentrated
on improving the sanitary conditions of prisons. Piped
water, proper toilet and bath facilities, infirmaries, and
good ventilation were demanded (Johnston 1973:17).
Following Howard's revelations, three main types of
prison design were settled upon by European (and later,
American) architects and prison officials: rectangular or
H-shaped forms similar to recent eighteenth-century church
buildings; circular or polygonal forms; and the radial form,
which became the most common. Within these designs, the use
of cast iron bars and doors became more feasible due to cer-
tain scientific and technological advances. Therefore, the
"constant surveillance" technique was no longer the most
important means of custody. This proved significant in the
rectangular designs, whose physical arrangement of rooms
prevented proper observation of the prisoners (Johnston
1973:17-18).
In regard to the physical aspects of the British and
European penal institutions of about 1800, it should be
recognized that most cells were small and dark, being lit
19.
and ventilated solely by a tiny. barred window. Cells had
no toilets or running water; walls were st'lUne; and doors were
typically wooden with a small peephose (bars were not yet
widespread). Heat was produced by stoves or furnaces
throughout the building, and most every prison had gover-
nor's (administrative) quarters, workshops, an infirmary,
and a chapel (Johnston 1973:26).
Here we have the general situation in Europe at the
time that real advances began to occur in American penology.
However, to get the full perspective on prison practices
and configurations in the New World, it is necessary to
look back to the 1600's and the origins of social control
in America.
;';8(; Lion 1
Part 3
GENERAL U.S. PRISON HISTORY,
1790-1930
20.
Colonial America began without prisons and, for the
most part, remained prisonless until the Revolutionary War.
As in the Old World, crimes equivalent to felonies brought
capital punishment, corporal punishment, or fines, rather
than incarceration. Punishments were exceedingly severe for
the majority or crimes, re1'lecting the Puritanical morals
and values of the age. There is little indication that
Colonial penology sought the reform of offenders: humili-
ation, deprivation, and pain were its dominant goals (Hawes
1979: 39) .
Though there were no true penal institutions, there
were instead debtors' workhouses and short-term "[';aols," as
the Pilgrims and other early settlers conceived of them;
these facilities were carry-overs from Europe. The jails
served to house criminals awaiting trial, and proved highly
lucrative for the extortion-bent jailers who ran them: pri-
soners had to pay for their food and drink as well as other
necessities. Jails had no individual cells, but instead
large areas where all different sorts of prisoners---men.
women, children, and the insane---were thrown together (Nagel
1973:6). The American Correctional Association even has
records of liquor-vending bars inside the jails of early
America (1972:25).
Massachusetts was the first American colony to estab-
lish the semblance of a prison. though the rest of the
country did not take up on this aspect of social control
until the very end of the eighteenth century. As of 1632,
21.
the Massachusetts Bay Colony had built a small wooden prison
in Boston which was to provide confinement for offenders
from all parts of that colony for the next eighteen years.
Legislation was passed in Massachusetts' General Court in
1655 requiring the establishment of houses of correction in
each country for petty offenders (American Correctional
Association 1972,19).
The first prison to serve the Commonwealth of Massa-
chusetts following ratification of the United states Consti-
tution in 1780 was the Castle Island fortress/prison in
Boston Harbor, beginning in 1784. The same institution
had been used to hold highly intractable prisoners as early
as 1636. but had never been sufficiently secure to keep them
in. The Castle Island prison, says the American Correctional
Association, was actually the earliest prison in America,
although the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia is fre-
quently cited as such: Walnut Street did not officially
become a prison until 1790 (1972,20).
As jails and prisons were being founded In this coun-
try. the harsh criminal laws were beginning to change. In
1682 William Penn and the first assembly of Pennsylvania
passed what was known as "The Great Law," which expressed
the Quaker criminal code. The Quaker code was more humane
and less vindictive than the previously dominant English
criminal codes, but was repealed in 1718. Finally. in 1794,
after the American victory over England. an act was passed
in Pennsylvania law which assigned the death penalty only
to cases of first-degree murder and recommended imprison-
ment for other serious offenses (American Correctional
Association 1972:19).
22.
With the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, a cry for
the reform of criminal sanctions was heard throughout the
country. The newly-formed states began to respond as the
public became more insistent, and incarceration soon took
the place of capital and corporal punishment. One of the
most notable institutions introduced at this time was
Philadelphia's Walnut Street Jail, from which was derived
the construct that was to dominate penology for the greater
part of the following century: the penitentiary (Rothman
1971:61-62).
The penitentiary originated on Quaker principles as a
solution to what the country's citizens perceived as the
causes of deviant behavior. Based on the organization,
control, and reform of criminals, early penitentiaries were
the object of public admiration and interest. As a matter
of fact, they constituted something of a tourist attraction
for visiting foreigners---penologists as well as ordinary
sightseers (Rothman 1971:79-81). 1787 saw the dawn of
modern penal philosophy in the United States when Benjamin
Franklin and Dr. Benjamin Rush held a gathering for a group
of Quakers and Free-thinkers in Philadelphia, who were to
become the original members of the Philadelphia Prison
Society. Dr. Rush presented a paper which called for re-
vised treatment of criminals. Specifically, he suggested
construction of a prison featuring housing and treatment
differentiation according to crime; a "rational system" of
23
inmate labor; and indeterminate sentencing. Within three
years. the bulk 01 his proposals had been incorporated into
American penal philosophy. The clearest indices of these
early concepts are to be found in the plans of Philadelphia's
Walnut Street Jail (Gill 1972:111).
The Walnut Street Jail was actually the lirst peniten-
tiary. Originally erected in 1773. in 1790 an act was
passed providing for the construction of a new cell block
in the yard of the existing congregate-room jail building.
Solitary confinement with strict labor was prescribed lor
the inhabitants of the new single cells. and the predecessor
of both the Pennsylvania and Auburn systems was born (Teeters
1955:1). Walnut street was designed with two types of hou-
sing because it was intended for use as a short-term jail
in addition to a correctional institution. Debtors. mis-
demeanants and pre-trial inmates as well as new convicts
had to be housed there. Thus. the last category of prisoners
went into individual cells while the rest were assigned to
congregate rooms (McKelvey 1977:8).
The single-cell system. first set forth in the United
States by the Walnut Street Jail. constituted one of the most
valuable concepts in early American prison development. No
longer were prisoners open to the threat of physical abuse
by their fellow congregate-room inhabitants. nor were large-
scale disturbances as likely to occur. Walnut Street ob-
served the practice of separating its inmates at night and
grouping them together to work in shops during the day.
Renowned as a success. the institution attracted many visi-
24.
tors wishing to study its program. Due to its fame, however,
the jail shortly became so overcrowded with newly assigned
inmates that its talented director and manager, Caleb Lownes,
resigned in 1799 (McKelvey 1977:9-12). This would seem to
support the contention that "as long as there are prison
cells, prisoners will be supplied to fill them."
Many of those who visited the Walnut street Jail re-
turned to their home states to plan prisons based on the
unique design. Others were inspired to initiate further
new styles for houses of correction---for example, Thomas
Jefferson collaborated with Benjamin Latrobe on a pentagonal
prison in Richmond, Virginia (McKelvey 1977:10). By 1800,
state prisons had been established in ten states: Penn-
sylvania, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Kentucky. Massa-
chusetts, Maryland, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Part of
the enthusiasm entailed in this spate of construction
stemmed from a belief that criminality had strong bases in
the faulty American legal system, and changing the system
(it was thought) would weaken crime (Rothman 1971:62).
In spite of this enthusiasm, not all of the prisons
established were of acceptable design or function. Only
in 1827 did the state of Connecticut construct a new peni-
tentiary at Wethersfield and thus terminate the use of
the Simsbury copper-mine prison, which consisted simply
of an abandoned mine shaft and grotto. During the nearly
thirty years of its existence, inmates were kept "in slime-
covered caverns with water dripping from the ceiling" and
slept in niches in the walls of the mine (Rothman 1971:90).
25
In fact, the Simsbury mine-prison was the 1'irst state prison
in America, having been established as such in 1790 (Sellin
1972:12).
A similar situation existed in the state of Maine's
prison system in the 1830's. The prison at Thomaston inclu-
ded a series of underground pits, seventy-six in number,
measuring 9 ~ x ~ feet and nearly ten feet deep. Originally
intended for solitary confinement, they had to accomodate
two prisoners or more due to overpopulation. This was for-
tunate for the prisoners, for men thus confined alone would
have frozen to death during the long winter, extra pit-mates
provided necessary warmth. The cell-pits were finally re-
placed in 1845 by a new prison (Barnes and Teeters 1945:527).
Aside from these bizarre examples, the first American
prisons resembled nothing so much as oversized frame houses,
no different from any ordinary wooden dwelling. New Jersey's
first prison, for example, evidenced no strong security---
only a wall of medium height enclosed part of the property,
which totalled only four acres. (Incidentally, the New Jer-
sey State Prison continues to occupy its original site of
1797. Luckily. the original building was no longer used
after 1836, when a new structure was erected; however, this
"more recent" portion remains in use even today.)
with growing inmate populations at the start of the nine-
teenth century, strength of custody soon became a major con-
cern of prison designers and administrators. In 1800, a
maximum security state prison was built at Charlestown,
Massachusetts, and was touted by the Board of Visitors to
26.
Charlestown as being exceptionally secure and well-built.
Soon after their remarks werc publicized, sixteen inmates
escaped (Rothman 1971.90). With the occurrence of several
incidents like this, security came to absolutely preoccupy
many prison planners. This concern was to be most clearly
seen in the period of prison construction following the
18]0's.
As long as prisons have existed in America, the rooms
in which the inmates slept and spent most of their time
have comprised the very core of the institution (Carter,
McGee, and Nelson 1975.147). This was especially true of
this early time period, in which many prisoners were rarely
subject to any significant amounts of mobility within the
institution. Ironically, many prison wardens of the nine-
teenth century shared a belief that dull, monotonous cell
housing would make labor a welcome diversion in the inmate's
eyes. "a privilege, not a punishment" (Rothman 1971.146).
As it turned out, the dullness of the cells often led
beyond boredom to mental derangement.
Early nineteenth-century prison facades were frequently
modelled after military or factory ideologies; physical
layouts were usually designed for order and regularity, with
symmetricality playing an important role. Many institutions
from the early days of prison reform through the mid-1800's
were reminiscent of medieval fortresses, both for functional
(thick walls and observation turrets for security) and im-
pressive purposes (Rothman 1971.107). This was because
the outward appearancesof correctional institutions were
27.
expected not only to reflect economy and security in design,
but also to promote a deterrent influence upon the inmates
and the public. In other words, a prison was supposed to
instill horror in the observer. Low, somber, massive con-
structions were thought to achieve this effect, with such
oppressive decorations as bas-relief chains or dragons above
the gates (Johnston 1973:27).
Thus, prisons took root in the United States, but there
were obvious problems with the system of penology. The
impetus seemed merely to be to have a prison, regardless of
its humanity or efficacy, and the young states were producing
some poor specimens. Widespread troubles included over-
crowding; inadequate personnel,idleness of prisoners, and
poor physical structures of institutions. For just these
reasons, the Walnut Street Jail facility was to be abandoned
in 1835 upon the completion of a new county jail. The en-
tire new Quaker penal philosophy might have been abandoned
as well in favor of the older, easier methods of punish-
ment, had it not been for the establishment of' the prisons
at Auburn, New York, and Philadelphia (Gill 1972:111).
28.
Between 1816 and 1829, New York and Pennsylvania were
the leaders in innovative prison design and construction.
With close inspection of the Walnut Street Jail, each state
improvised upon the penitentiary concept of individual con-
finement and reading of the Bible to instill repent, and, it
was hoped, reform in the offender. The Auburn or congre-
gate system was conceived in prisons built at Auburn and
later Ossining. New York; then the Pennsylvania or separate
system, its rival, was established at Pittsburgh and Phila-
delphia institutions. Shortly after the introduction of
these two systems. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland,
and New Jersey were hurrying to modify their existing prison
structures or build new ones, with several midwestern states
soon to follow suit (Rothman 1971:81). Each style was highly
influential; in fact, for nearly the entire nineteenth cen-
tury, the evolution of prison design depended solely on
these two distinct systems (U. N. Social Defense Research
Institute 1975:18).
It was with the acceptance of the Auburn and Penn-
sylvania systems that architecture began to be of major im-
portance in developing, determining, and implementing penal
philosophy. Indeed, architects today continue to wield con-
siderable power and influence over correctional ideologies---
for better and for worse, as shall be discussed further on.
At the time of construction of Auburn and the Phila-
delphia institution known as Eastern State Penitentiary.
three major causes of criminal behavior were cited by the
29.
penologists of the day. These were. a harmful environment,
a general lack of intelligence and aptitude, and an ignor-
ance of right and wrong due to insufficient knowledge of the
Bible. The penal philosophy tied to architecture therefore
aimed at a building which would cut off harmful outside in-
fluences, teach the offender work skills, and give the of-
fender an opportunity to learn from the Bible the meaning of
right and wrong. Eastern state and Auburn were the products
of this ideology (Nagel 1973.110). Further, underlying the
isolationist tenet of both the Auburn and Pennsylvania sys-
tems was the belief that interaction of and communication
between prisoners led to further crime upon release. Another
concept entailed in the designs was that evil temptations to
crime were rampant in society at large; therefore, peno-
logists felt that total separation from others and strict
discipline would turn the offender away from crime (Rothman
1971:82) .
Here, I would like to present a more detailed exami-
nation of the Auburn and Pennsylvania systems.
THE AUBURN SYSTEM
Auburn was New York's second prison. The first was
Newgate, erected in New York City in 1797. It quickly be-
came overcrowded, necessitating the eventual construction
of Auburn in 1816. Until the latter began to accept pri-
soners, Newgate was releasing old inmates simply to make
room for new ones (Reid 1976'517). The men responsible for
30.
the inception of the Auburn system were Elam Lynds, the In-
stitution's first warden, and John Cray, his architect-
builder. Lynds's personal view was thm the criminal's
spirit had to be broken before any reformation could be ex-
pected, and that this should be carried out in a "fearsome
and forbidding" environment (Gill 1972:111-112). Drawing
upon selected aspects of the Walnut Street Jail, he devised
the Auburn system, also called the Silent System. Its prin-
ciples were expounded in the practice of allowing the com-
pletelysilent interaction of prisoners during work in the
daytime, but solitary confinement at night. Long, rectan-
gular cell blocks with corridors all along the perimeter
(rather than through the middle) exemplified this system
(U. N. Social Defense Research Institute 1975:19). Cray
showed in his architectural plan total compliance with the
treatment philosophy intended for the New York institution;
however, his attention to matters of plumbing and lighting
was poor in comparison to John Haviland's, the designer of
Eastern State (Reid 1976:522-523).
When Auburn was begun in 1816, only congregate rooms
meant to house eight to twelve inmates were built---twenty-
eight of them. Three years later, the New York state legis-
lature followed popular sentiment and approved the construc-
tion of a new wing of small, single-occupancy cells (Hawes
1979:41). Upon completion of the wing in April 1821, the
Legislature requested that the Auburn officers delineate
three classes among the ir prisoners. The "most hardened"
criminals were to be placed in individual solitary confine-
31.
ment cells; those less hardened were also to be kept in
solitary confinement until they showed signs of repentance,
when they would be allowed out of their cells for certain
daytime duties; and the inmates guilty of the least serious
offenses were to be segregated at night but grouped together
for silent work during the day, .in quarries and fields as
well as shops. This new system of prisoner organization
implied an increased determination to utilize imprisonment
itself as a form of punishment; unfortunately, the plan was
doomed to fail (McKelvey 1977:13). Of the eighty-three
members of Auburn's first "hardened class" of criminals
kept in perpetual solitary confinement, :five died; many
others went insane (Goldfarb and Singer 1973:29). Fol-
lowing a revealinG visit by the Governor in 182]. the prac-
tice of perpetual solitary confinement at Auburn was aban-
doned. In fact, upon viewing the extraordinarily cramped
living quarters of the "most hardened" offenders, the
Governor granted pardons to the majority of them. There-
after, the more widely-recoGnized Auburn model was employed:
that of separate cells for the inmates at night, with closely
supervised work in silence during the day (McKelvey 1977'
13-14).
It was certainly the tiny dimensions of the cells in
which the solitary confinement prisoners at Auburn were
constantly enclosed that brought about the men's inability
to cope with their living conditions. Reformers deplored
the inhumanity evident in the design, arguing that this type
of imprisonment accomplished little toward preparation for
32.
the inmate's return to society. They were quite right in
this respect---Auburn was more like a series of cages for
animals than for men. Each cell of the penitentiary measured
7 x 3i x 7 feet and opened onto narrow wooden walkways, such
that only the first level of the five-tiered enclosure could
have direct access to the outer walls of the building. One
disadvantage to this design was that little sunlight from
the outer windows reached the slatted cell doors, and the
inmates passed much of their time in relative gloom (McKelvey
1977: 12) .
The inside-cell arrangement initiated at Auburn is
typically regarded as more secure than outside cells (those
which abut on an outer wall), because prisoners housed in
the former type have no window through which to attempt an
escape (Carter, McGee, and Nelson 1975:147). Actually,
one of the reasons the Auburn system featured an inner-
cell plan was the prohibitive cost of installing an out-
side window in each of the several hundred cells. An ad-
ditional example, then, may be seen herein regarding the
way in which economic considerations affect prison design
(McKelvey 1977:13). Further evidence of frugal concern is
apparent in the institution's lack of plumbing. At both
Auburn and Sing Sing, built in.1825, buckets served as cell
toilets (and were still in use over one hundred years later
at these institutions (MacCormick and Garrett 1926,441) ).
All cells were very dark and damp, with inadequate venti-
lation. After a time, the stone partitions and wood-and-
iron doors were replaced with steel; thus, the cells truly
33.
became metal cages with barred fronts, completely devoid of
privacy (Johnston 1973:40-41).
The basic layout of the Auburn institution consisted of
a central administrative building containing offices, a
chapel consisting of single, walled-off cubicles, and a
dining hall, to which was connected on each side a multi-
level cellblock. Within the enclosure of the surrounding
walls were the hospital, power plant, and workshops (Johnston
1973:40). Overall, the physical plant of the prison lay
in a U-shape, completely surrounded by a high stone wall.
The Auburn plan was quite successful after the abol-
ishment of the solitary confinement experiment. Until the
mid-1830's, only Auburn and three other facilities---
Baltimore, Frankfort, and Kentucky---included a dining
room to vary the sights and experiences of the prisoners
(McKelvey 1977:28). Indeed, from about 1825 on, the Auburn
plan was the model for the greater part of prison construction
in the United States (Johnston 1973:40). Sing Sing, built
on the Auburn plan as well, established the practice of
incorporating long, dark cell corridors into prisons; this
concept was to dominate corrections for a hundred years
(Goldfarb and Singer 1973:36-37).
The basic problem with the Auburn system was that there
could be no feasible manner in which to absolutely prevent
communication between prisoners while they worked and dined
together. Complete supervision was impossible to maintain,
and when conversers were apprehended in the act they were
sentenced to severe punishments (which generally did nothing
34.
to solve the communication problem). Those opposed to the
Auburn system declared that this defect made cruelty inherent
in the congregate plan. Also, the silent system could only
function effectively when prisons were not at all overcrowded.
As populations grew in the early 1830's, it was necessary to
construct whole new cellblocks in order to maintain the indi-
vidual cell occupancy principle. If cell accomodations rose
above one person to a cubicle, the isolation axiom would im-
mediately be violated. This was true for the Pennsylvania
system as well (Rothman 1971:98).
The Auburn system was obviously a momentous development
in the prison science of the nineteenth century. It was
destined to influence the desir;n of a r;reat many institu-
tions constructed after its inception. Its one maj or rival
was the Pennsylvania system, whose tale also begins with the
Walnut Street Jail; thus, that shall be our starting place.
THE PENNSYLVANIA SYSTEM
By 1800, the Walnut Street Jail had experienced a break-
down in its administration. It is believed this was due to
the political circumstances surrounding Caleb Lownes' depar-
ture from the institution. The last few years had seen an
increase in the difficulty of controlling the prisoners: they
set fire to several wooden outbuildings and were generally
unmanageable. When it was apparent that little could be
done to return the Jail. to its former state, the Philadelphia
Prison Society began to seek support from the Pennsylvania
35.
legislature for building a new penitentiary. Not until 1818
did the Legislature pass an act appropriating funds for this
purpose, and the Western State Penitentiary was opened in
Pittsburgh in 1826. Unfortunately, this prison proved to
have been very poorly designed and executed, and made no
provisions for labor, either congregate or solitary. It was
ordered that the prison be razed, and a new one constructed
in Philadelphia. At this point, the Pennsylvania system
came into existence (Teeters 1955:86; Barnes and Teeters
1945: 507) .
The Pennsylvania system, also known as the Solitary
System, entailed absolute solitary confinement at all times,
with any work being performed in the inmate's cell (U. N.
Social Defense Research Institute 1975:19). The system
was formulated by the Philadelphia Prison Society, and
architect John Haviland was commissioned to create a struc-
ture to suit the philosophy derived from the concept of
penitent isolation seen at the Walnut Street Jail.
Haviland developed a unique sOlitary-confinement-and-
labor plan for the penitentiary and began to build. How-
ever, in 1826 the Pennsylvania legislature, impressed by what
they saw as Auburn's success (more likely its large share of
public attention), recommended that the Eastern State Peni-
tentiary be redesigned to approximate Auburn before its
completion. The Legislature's wishes were ignored, and
Eastern State incorporated labor in the individual cells,
rather than congregate shops, into the basic system of soli-
tary confinement. Visiting European scholars and theorists
36.
were greatly impressed by the new Pennsylvania plan. Some,
such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, were
disapproving of the vast sums of money which had apparently
gone merely for the imposing, castle-like exterior of the
facility (Hawes 1979:44-45). In fact, at the time it was
opened in 1829. Eastern State was the largest and most ex-
pensive construction of any type in the United States.
Representatives from other states as well as other countries
arrived to inspect the institution, and expressed approval
of the system of total isolation (Johnston 1973:31-33).
Haviland's design for Eastern State perfected the wheel
or radial plan, which had been seen in a primitive form in
England. The philosophy and the physical structure of the
Pennsylvania plan were virtually synonomous from every con-
ceptual angle; the style was to be hiv.hly significant for
a great while. The plan physically resembled thick spokes
of a wheel emanating from a central hub which contained the
prison's administrative space. Each spoke was a single-
story wing of individual outside cells with attached exer-
cise yards; corridors ran down the center of each wing.
Surrounding all of this was a rectangular wall with ele-
vated guard towers at each corner. The wedges of lawn left
by the spokes reaching the perimeter were used as garden
plots for growing vegetables to feed the inmates.
The radial plan counted among its virtues ease of
management, ease of supervision, and physical compactness.
However,the costs entailed were exorbitant, both for con-
struction and upkeep (Carter, McGee. and Nelson 1975:156).
37.
The architectural design for Eastern State was derived in
part from the San Michele House of Correction, and in part
from the House of Correction at Ghent in Belgium. Both of
these European institutions had received favorable reviews
from John Howard, who happened to be a distant cousin of
John Haviland (Barnes and Teeters 1945:482). Reid (1976)
believes Haviland was also influenced by Jeremy Bentham's
Panopticon design, which shall be described in the section
on prison styles.
The cells at Eastern State were of good size---8 x 12,
with ten-foot ceilings---and boasted toilets, running water,
and hot water heating. Only during severe illness did a
prisoner leave his cell; otherwise, his entire sentence was
spent in his cubicle and in the private walled-in exercise
yard adjoining it. Haviland paid admirable attention to
detail in his design: the paving stones in the floor were
joined out of the inmate's reach; communication between in-
mates was supposedly made architecturally impossible; and
ventilation, lighting, plumbing, and heating were of the
most modern sort. Most importantly, every aspect of its
design conformed to the treatment philosophy involved
(Johnston 1973:30-31). After Eastern State gained in-
fluence over New Jersey and other Pennsylvania prison,
the radial penitentiary was reproduced in nearly every coun-
try in Europe and well as Japan, China, and South America
(Johnston 1973:36).
Some of the reasons behind instituting the practice
of total isolation for every prisoner under the Pennsylvania
38.
system included the fact that solitude not only provided
punishment, butthe time for reflection on one's misdeeds;
also, group escapes or assaults on guards could be prevented.
To advance moral reform, religious instruction (self-taught)
was an integral part of the inmates' regime. Other diver-
sions were outdoor exercise and bench labor within the cell
(Nagel 1973:8). Throughout his prison term, in fact, an
inmate saw and spoke with only a very few guards and care-
fully chosen visitors---usually chaplains. The system was
so adamant about total isolation that every new prisoner
was made to wear a hood over his head as the guards marched
him to his cell. Under no circumstances would the prison
officials enable a prisoner to see or be seen by his peers
(Rothman 1971:82-85).
Because there was rarely any occasion for inmate traffic
through the institution, guards at Eastern state had little
need for special correctional training. Security was usu-
ally a simple matter---disturbances were infrequent and
escapes were difficult to bring about. Disciplinary punish-
ment was hardly ever meted out, as rule violations were few.
For these reasons, the Pennsylvania system predicted quiet,
efficient, and secure operation of an institution which would
ultimately reform its inmates (Rothman 1971:86). Of course,
such was not exactly the case.
In spite of its great success in shaping the architectural
designs of penitentiaries, the Pennsylvania system had defi-
nite drawbacks. Its costs were exorbitant both for construc-
tion and maintenance; also, total isolation had a notably
39.
negative ert'ect on the mental and physical health of the in-
mates, as had been the case at Auburn (Johnston 1973:37).
One of the severest critics of the Pennsylvania system was
Heinrich Heine, the German journalist; he referred to Eastern
State as "horrible, inhuman, even unnatural." Dickens also
questioned the use of this system, opining that the public
could not possibly fathom "the immense amount of torture
and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for
years, inflicts upon the sufferers" (Pevsner 1976: 168) . In-
terestingly, the Pennsylvania had much more influence outside
the United States than within it: a much greater impact re-
sulted from the development of Auburn. Still, there are
countries where, even now, prisoners take their meals in
their cells and are completely confined to their cells
during the first part of their sentence (Johnston 1973:37).
The Auburn plan and the Pennsylvania plan were in
ways analogous, in ways quite distinct. Nevertheless, each
was derived from the fundamental Quaker construct of peni-
tence through confinement and labor. This philosophy re-
garded the cell not as a dungeon, but as a private place
for reflection and repentance. Unfortunately, the inside-
cell design at Auburn made these little "sanctuaries" too
dark and distressing, and their intended purpose was hardly
achieved. Even so, in 1825 Louis Dwight led the Boston
Prison Discipline Society in unanimous approval and praise
of Auburn. This action spawned what was to become a lengthy
controversy over the attributes of the two systems and which
40.
was to determine the internal arrangements of American pri-
sons (Hawes 1979:42-44).
The conflict between Auburn and Pennsylvania was headed
by Dwight's Boston Prison Discipline Society and the Phila-
delphia Prison Society, founded (it will be recalled) in 1787
by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Benjamin Rush (Barnes and Teeters
1945:533). As the supporters of the two systems waged bat-
tle upon one another, each attempted to establish superi-
ority not only by proclaiming it for the respective institu-
tions, but also through singling out particular deficiencies
in the opponent plan. Auburn's supporters made their deepest
dig at the Pennsylvania design by implying that illicit
communication between prisoners was possible because the
cell walls were not sufficiently thick, and sewage pipes
allowed enough sound to travel to permit conversation
(Rothman 1971:87). This charge was not solidly based, for
little if any inmate communication was actually possible
(Barnes and Teeters 1945:512). After 1845, the Prison
Society of New York joined Boston in supporting the Auburn
system, whereas the Philadelphia organization naturally con-
tinued to favor the Pennsylvania plan. As history revealed,
the latter had only limited success outside its home state
(in this country, that is). Several other states adopted
the system for a few years and subsequently abolished it
(Barnes and Teeters 1945:535).
While the Auburn-Pennsylvania debate wore on through
the nineteenth century, correctional facilities constructed
during that time period were mostly in the style of the
41.
former institution. Rather than signifying a clear public
preference for the Auburn plan, this might support the con-
cept that its popularity lay in its lower construction and
maintenance costs: inmate clean-up crews did not fit into
Pennsylvania's correctional ideology (Hawes 1979:47). Con-
gregate labor undeniably turned a greater profit than in-
dividual cell labor; this was certainly appealing to legis-
lators and penologists alike. Even so, neither system was
notably successful in reforming offenders (Johnston 1973:
39). This fact was underscored at the institutions built
as reproductions of Auburn: few adhered strongly to the
silent-separationist maxims set forth, and discipline was
often wanting. Before any steps could be taken to handle
these shortcomings, the Civil War broke out (Rothman 1971:
99-101). By this time, only Eastern State was still solidly
adhering to the solitary system. It maintained this prac-
tice up until the late 1860's when finally two men were
placed in one cell and an era ended (McKelvey 1977:50).
Neither Eastern State nor Auburn were ideal insti-
tutions; however, they should be examined from the perspec-
tive held by Killinger and Cromwell:
"The most that can be said for this period of
American prison history is that, despite all its
stupidities and cruelties, it was better than a
return to the barbarities of capital and cor-
poral punishment for crime. In the face of pub-
lic indignation at the chaos existing in early
American prisons in 1820, it maintained the
penitentiary system (Killinger and Cromwell 1973:41).
By the time of the Civil War, prison facilities through-
42.
out the United States were greatly overcrowded: two or
three prisoners frequently shared cells constructed for a
single occupant. Inmate populations had increased so dra-
matically as to prompt the governors of several states to
actually employ their power to pardon as a means of relieving
prison crowding conditions (McKelvey 1977:61). At this point
in American history. it was generally accepted that prison
could not correct effectively. but it could remove the of-
fender from society at large. This it did. by warehousing
inmates in ever-larger institutions. Much of prison manage-
ment philosophy was founded in the concept of maximum economy,
and bigger prisons were more economically run. Confinement
was thus the only goal of corrections at that time. As
William Nagel states:
"The inevitable consequence was the development
of operational monstrosities. It is impossible
to remove large numbers of men from the free
world. isolate them together in the unnatural-
ness of huge prisons, and not have management
problems of staggering dimensions. ,The tensions
and frustrations inherent in prisons of any size
are magnified by the herding together of large
numbers of troubled people. The result is the
evolution of a prison goal that. when stripped
of all the correctional rhetoric, is simply.
'keep the lid on.' Dehumanization and violence
are major results ( Nagel 1976:112) 0"
Though we now know that prisons should under no circumstances
exceed 500 capacity. the average institution built before
1960 was intended to confine a population of 1,100 (Nagel
1973:55).
Such was the situation at the end of the Civil War: wide-
spread overcrowding in outsize prisons. The public had be-
gun to recognize the failure of the once-lauded specialized
43.
penal systems, and was ready for a change. Most assuredly,
change was on its way. In 1867, Enoch Wines and Theodore
Dwight made a report to the New York state legislature re-
garding prison conditions in that state. On the whole,
these members of the New York Prison Discipline Association
were unimpressed with the idea that architecture could af-
fect rehabilitation by providing a particular kind of en-
vironment. They argued against the construction of monu-
mental facilities along the lines of Eastern State, opining
that a stately exterior of a penitentiary somehow implied
the dignity of crime (Rothman 1971:240). Apparently, they
were not overly concerned with the vast numbers of inmates
housed in these monumental facilities. In any case, within
the next three years they would emphatically endorse the
construction of the first U. S. Reformatory at Elmira, New
York. whose majestic facade resembled nothing so much as
a Gothic palace.
The reformatory system, subsequent to the penitentiary.
began to be developed in Britain around 1853 when all but
one of the British colonies refused to accept transported
convicts, forcing the revision of the existing penal system.
An act was passed that year in Parliament calling for a
three-stage "Prison System". prisoners would first be
placed in solitary confinement; associative labor would then
be allowed; and finally would come conditional release on a
'ticket of leave' (parole). This system was refined in the
late 1850's by Sir Walter Crofton, resulting in the Irish
Convict System. Here, the three stages were more detailed:
44.
the second stage was broken down into four progressive sub-
stages, which prisoners could attain by the earning of
points through good behavior. The aims of the Irish system
were to teach desire for and enjoyment of labor (through the
removal of such during the first stage); habits of indus-
try; and self-restraint (by point-earning in the second
stage and 'work-release' in the third). Essentially, the
Irish system was a graded system of prisons (Putney and
Putney 1962:437-440).
Nearly from its inception, the Irish system received
a great deal of attention in the United states. When the
first U. S. Prison Congress convened in Cincinnati in 1870,
the idea of a reformative prison plan was extremely popular.
Zebulon Brockway. one of the principal penologists of the
day, was particularly impressed; Brockway went on to mold
a new prison at Elmira. New York, into America's first
reformatory. Built in 1876, Elmira was the locale of a
shift in penological focus from punishment and penitence
to, specifically, rehabilitation (Hopkins 1918:4). Through
the new system. inmates could acquire work skills and put
them to use upon release. Here was the first true appli-
cation of parole and the indeterminate sentence in this
country, two aspects of corrections which are now basic to
the U. S. prison system (Putney and Putney 1962:441).
From the floor plans and photographs found in the New
York State Reformatory Year Book for 1891, one can see that
the Elmira facility was constructed basically in aU-shape
with inside cells stacked in four-story tiers, very much
like Auburn. Superintendent Brockway inhabited a house of
Victorian architecture connected to the front of the insti-
tution, which was also Victorian/Gothic in style---many tur-
rets and belfries were incorporated into the external design,
resembling a castle more than a prison. High arched win-
dows were featured on all sides of the facility, but the
later cell block additions were ornamented to a much lesser
degree than the original reformatory (New York State Refor-
matory 1891). One of the most self-defeating character-
istics of the Elmira Reformatory, according to Robert Barnes,
was its inappropriate maximum-security design. For a prison
utilizing minimum-security concepts, this was a glaringly in-
congruous plant (Barnes 1951:276).
While originally constructed to hold only five hundred
inmates, Elmira soon experienced severe overcrowding (Gold-
farb and Singer 1973:42). Although by November 1891 there
were 750 rooms in the facility, Elmira's inmate population
numbered 1,313. Brockway noted that the inmate congestion
was hindering the reformative process, and hoped the opening
of a new cellblock wing would alleviate the overcrowding.
(This new wing consisted of 1,240 cells, ranging in size
from eight feet by four feet to eight feet square;) Un-
fortunately, the Reformatory population continued to grow
until it attained trple capacity at the end of the nine-
teenth century (New York State Reformatory 1891).
Elmira's first residents were young men between the
ages of sixteen and thirty, transferred from Auburn; most
of them were first offenders. While Brockway was completely
46.
devoted to the reformative ideology, he seemed not to recog-
nize any connection between the architecture of an institu-
tion and its rehabilitative aims. Even in 1910 Brockway
was advocating the use of inside cells in the Auburn style
for the general reformatory population, and a section of
cells buiat on the Pennsylvania plan for highly intractable
inmates (Goldfarb and Singer 1973:41-42). As a matter of
fact, the majority of prisons were built according to the
Auburn plan until approximately 1913, by which time most
states had erected maximum-security prisons of massive
design. Construction of penal institutions lulled during
World War I, without gaining momentum until the 1930's
(Johnston 1973:40).
Education was one of the essential thrusts of the re-
formatory system. It was believed that by "imparting in-
telligence" unto the offender, his or her reform was made
so much the more likely. Social training and good-conduct
rewards, penologists stated, would encourage prisoners to
manage their destinies positively and work toward parole
(Goldfarb and Singer 1973:40-41). In addition to class-
room learning, the basic tenets of the reformatory were
security and direction. Custody of the prison should be
sufficient to discourage attempts to escape, and the pri-
soner's total existence should be directed---mentally and
physically---away from criminality and toward reform. El-
mira's beginning years were optimistic, and the system
seemed to function without serious defect; by the end of
the nineteenth century,. however, overcrowding of the refor-
47.
matory had led to what Brockway regarded as the ineffective-
ness and superficiality of the program for reform. In 1900,
Brockway resigned as Elmira's superintendent and the refor-
matory system as a whole began to decline, for the American
institutions which had copied Elmira were poor imitations
and proved unsuccessful at reforming offenders. The turn
of the century, then, was essentially the end of true re-
formatory movement in this country (Putney and Putney 1962:
443). Regardless of this, the opening of the twentieth
century saw mostly reformatory-type prisons being construc-
ted. A problem basic to the reformatory which was soon
recognized concerned its limited applicability: young first
offenders were thought to benefit the most from the strict
educational program. Juvenile institutions eventually took
up the concept as a fundamental aspect of that particular
branch of corrections (Barnes and Teeters 1945:555).
As indicated above, little prison construction occurred
during World War I. and after its close the issue of over-
crowding was a prime incentive for beginning new building
programs. To the dismay of most state legislatures, pro-
posed correctional institutions were generally much too
expensive in construction and upkeep (McKelvey 1977:282).
With the gradual onset of the Depression, funds for many and
specialized prisons were not to be widely had; in consi-
deration of this and in light of the ever-mounting inmate
populations of the day, a sort of competition took place
between several states to see who could build the biggest
prison. One of the resultant monstrosities was the Pan-
48.
optican-style institution at Stateville, Illinois, whose
physical appearance shall be described in a later section.
Its population reached 3,250 (double occupancy) by the end
of the 1920's. In California, the prisons at Folsom and
San Quentin were expanded to increase their capacity: all
new cells measured lot x 4t x 7t feet and slept two---only
the insane prisoners were given single cells. This "inmate
boom" of the twenties, brought on by the great increase in
crime, caught several midwestern states particularly un-
prepared. Therefore, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio resorted
to crowding prisoners into too-small facilities while
hurrying to complete construction of larger prisons. In
1925 at Columbus, Ohio, 2,500 prisoners were being crammed
into the 840 old cells and dormitories. while the old pri-
son at Jefferson, Missouri, was putting as many as three
inmates into a single-occupancy cell (McKelvey 1977:282-283).
Not only were the prisons built during this period
oversized; another shortcoming lies in their general lack
of appropriate designs for dealing with different classes
of inmates. The large institutions, even when incorpora-
ting inside and outside cells and, in some cases, dormi-
tories, were still aimed at mass instead of individualized
treatment (McKelvey 1977:308-309). This was soon to change,
as will be seen in the following section.
Section II
Part 1
PRISON STYLES,
1910-1980
49.
It is stated in the Handbook of Correctional Institu-
tion Design and Construction that the single factor which
has "so retarded the development and success of rehabilita-
tive programs" is the recent lag in correctional architec-
ture (U. S. Bureau of Prisons 1949:2). This statement alone
shows the increasing awareness of the environment's in-
fluence on correctional processes, particularly behavior.
Of course, the full extent of its influence, on a macro-
or a micro-level, is not yet known; nor will it be for a long

time, if ever. In the ensuing sections, architectural
effect on inmate behavior will be examined. Here, I would
like to present a summary of the basic styles of prison con-
struction between about 1910 and the present day.
As of the early part of the twentieth century, prison
architecture reverted to being merely stylistic variations
on a theme---no longer were "systems" of penal treatment
exemplified in institutional design. At this time, then,
three different styles were dominant: the radial plan; the
Auburn or inside-cell plan; and the telephone-pole plan, a
high-security plan soon to be described. The last evolved
with the need for increased prisoner mobility within the
prison buildings due to vocational training and educational
classes conducted in various parts of the institution
(Johnston 1973:41). By about 1925. penal administrators had
found that even after all the stylistic and ideological
reforms of the nineteenth century, the correctional insti-
tution was still basically a hit-or-miss social configu-
50.
ration: rehabilitation seemed rare, due in part to the in-
fluence of the inmate subculture. With this realization,
prison planners began to concentrate on the inmate himself,
his contacts with other inmates, and how these contacts
could be controlled or modified via architectural changes
(Johnston 1973:50). Prior to this time, all that was ex-
pected of a prison architect was the production of a secure,
relatively sanitary institution which included work facili-
ties. The development of a penal philosophy was not the
architect's responsibility. As inmate populations grew
and inmate activities (aside from labor) increased, however,
there arose a need for designs which could cope with the
greater prisoner mobility and extensive programs (Johnston
1973:52).
A primary source of problems in the field of correc-
tions which deserves mention here is the fragmentation of'
authority. The system of corrections in the United States
is controlled by all four levels of government---federal,
state, county, and local. Therefore, prisons occur at
several levels: federal, state, and county, for the most
part. No underlying form of organization ties together the
various parts of the system; there is no planning for the
system as a whole (Nagel 1973:14). This is part of the rea-
son for the great variations in prison size, quality, and so
on.
As noted previously, reformatories were still being
built in the beginning of the twentieth century. The Dis-
trict ()f Columbia's Lorton Prison at Lorton, Virginia, was
51.
intended as a reformatory, but did not follow the architec-
tural style of Elmira as had so many other prisons built
after 1876. Instead, Lorton was constructed in 1916 with
dormitories rather than cell blocks and with no surrounding
prison wall. Within the next ten years, NeW Jersey, Massa-
chusetts, and New York built prisons following this pattern.
Diagnosis and treatment were primary aspects of the penal
philosophy associated with these new, relatively open insti-
tutions (Goldfarb and Singer 1973:44). Many men's prisons
built since this period have included accomodations for
dormitories, or barracks-like living quarters traditionally
used in juvenile homes for boys. As with so many other
aspects of prison construction, the comparitively low con-
struction cost per inmate occupant of dormitory-style
housing is the strongest argument for its utilization. For
inmates for whom little supervision is necessary, such as
farm workers or those in forestry camps, dormitories are
marginally acceptable. However, due to the great diversity
of inmate types in most prisons, individual rooms or cells
for adult prisoners are highly preferable in order to ensure
the utmost personal sai"ety (Carter, lVlcGee, and Nelson 1975:
147-148). As I was told at one prison during my fieldwork,
dormitories' advantages lie in their ease of supervision
(necessitating the presence of fewer correctional officers)
and absence of suicide. However, the "open-bay" arrangements
contribute to tension and trouble, particularly in hot wea-
ther.
A truly innovative design appearing at about the same
52.
time as Lorton resulted from the Howard-prompted reform con-
cerns of the eighteenth century. This was the circular plan,
the most infamous of which was Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon.
From 1787 until his death, the philosopher-jurist tried un-
successfully to have his circular prison constructed in
England. Reproductions of his design were built during the
next two centuries in Spain, Holland, Cuba, and the United
States. One such prison exists at Stateville, Illinois; it
was built in 1917 (Carter, McGee, and Nelson 1975:159).
The Panoptic on prison is circular, all cells being ar-
ranged in tiers along the outside wall, with a large guard
post located in the center of the floor. All cells have
glass or grille fronts and large windows in back so that
prisoners may be observed by the guards at all times.
Bentham's original plan included speakinv, tubes leading from
each cell to the guard tower, enabling the man on duty to
hear all as well as see all (Johnston 1973:18-20). Al-
though Bentham's design was exceedingly costly to construct,
his penal philosophies were bent on the greatest possible
economy. Food and clothing should be of the cheapest avai-
lable, said Bentham, while still maintaining prisoner health
and comfort. He also prescribed detailed programs of exer-
cise, cleanliness, education, and reliEious service; these,
however, were never widely accepted (Goldfarb and Singer
1973:32).
One rather obvious drawback to the Panopticon plan is
the fact that while the guard can easily observe the move-
ments of the prisoners, they can just as easily observe the
53.
guard. Also, a great deal of space is wasted in the design,
as can be seen in photographs showing the vast amount of
unused floor space between the guard station and the cell
tiers. Last, inherent in this type of design is its poten-
tial for an over-large population: thc temptation is to
make it as capacious as possible, to hold as many men as
will fit in a space which can ostensibly be supervised by
a single guard (Johnston 1973:57). This seems to have been
the case at Stateville.
A rather frequently-found style of prison design em-
ploys the architectural scheme of a hollow square or rec-
tangle, in which the buildings are connected around a cen-
tral courtyard; this is known as the self-enclosing plan.
The design, similar in style to many medieval monasteries,
was followed in a series of Federal prisons built between
1935 and 1940. Although the majority of these housed only
about 500 men, it has ultimately been found that the self-
enclosing plan is most successful for institutions of fewer
than 300 inmates if two additional enclosures are added---
one for recreation purposes and another for utility buil-
dings such as shops and the heating plant. When only one
enclosed area exists, it must be used as the recreation
field as well as the thoroughfare for everyone moving from
one part of the institution to another. The latter use is
sometimes considered an inconvenience in itself, as the
courtyard must accomodate traffic in all weather; in Nagel's
view, however, this is the most desirable aspect afforded
by prisons designed in thllistyle. Not only does this pro-
vide sensory stimulation usually absent from prlson envi-
ronments, but it reduces apparent crowding and allows
54.
people to avoid constant physical contact with others (Nagel
1973:43). Recreational use of the yard poses problems, unfor-
tunately, stemming from inmate access to the doors and win-
dows of the surrounding buildings (Carter, McGee, and Nelson
1975:157). One prison built on this plan was Attica, con-
structed in 1931.
A derivative of the self-enclosing plan is the mul-
tiple quadrangle plan. Here, the total institution is split
up into two or more quadrangles, such that an aerial view
of the prison structure resembles a large square with a
cross in the middle, creating four enclosed courtyards. The
cells are located in the outer buildings, whereas the cross
contains offices. classrooms, dininp: and kitchen areas, hos-
pital, and shops. In this plan. a large institution may
be conveniently managed as four small facilities with
varying programs and housing inmates of different custody
levels but entailing lower operational costs (Carter, McGee,
and Nelson 1975:158). The main drawbacks of these court-
yard plans, however, are the great expense of construction;
the excessive distance between cell houses and other facil-
ities; and the too-long corridors in the main building. At
the Greenhaven Maximum Security Disciplinary Barracks in
New York. some staff members ride bicycles in the hallways
to get from one part of the institution to another (U. N.
Social Defense Research Institute 1975:28).
The telephone-pole plan has already been mentioned as
55.
significant to correctional institution designs of the twen-
tieth century. It is thought that the American telephone-
pole plan was originally derived from the Wormwood Scrubs
Prison, built between 1874 and 1891 in London. Wormwood
Scrubs featured four parallel cell blocks bisected by a
long, continuous passageway, and separated by shops and
dining wings. In 1898 a telephone-pole plan prison was
opened at Fresnes, outside Paris; being more defined in form
than Wormwood Scrubs, its design proved more influential in
the United States (Johnston 1973:42-43). Both Sanford
Bates and Alfred Hopkins, a New York prison architect,
studied modern penal designs abroad during the 1920s. From
their study was developed the plan for the Federal Peniten-
tiary at Lewisburg. Pennsylvania, adapted from Fresnes
(McKelvey 1977:302-303).
The telephone-pole plan is so called because of its
long central corridor with several "crossarm" buildings
attached to it, resembling a telephone pole fallen over.
This style is highly functional in engineering qualities
due to its economical distribution of facilites for water,
heat, electricity, sewage, and ventilation: all are con-
ducted via a utility tunnel underneath the main corridor.
It is also efficient in the way of inmate traffic and secu-
rity. as most activities may take place inside the buildings
(Carter, McGee, and Nelson 1975:157).
The Lewisburg Penitentiary was one of the first insti-
tutions to combine different security levels within the
same enclosure. It included dormitories, "honor rooms,"
56.
medium security outside cells, and maximum security inside
cells. All parts of the institution except for the work-
shops were connected by a single corridor. At the time,
the Federal Bureau of Prisons was highly impressed with
architect Hopkins's "discovery" that the majority of adult
felons do not require maximum security housing (Johnston
1973 :45).
The 1950's saw a considerable effort on the part of
many states to replace their outdated maximum security
prisons, often with telephone-pole plan. One of the most
favorable aspects of the plan is the option of closing off
corridor zones according to degree of custody, type of fa-
cility, or offender group (Johnston 1973:46-47) Unfor-
tunately, as shall be seen in the instance of the Federal
Penitentiary at Atlanta, it is not always easy to success-
fully segregate different groups of inmates since the esta-
blishment is so much a unified structure. In addition.
this type of penitentiary in particular tends to have an
atmosphere that is extremely sterile and redundant in its
rows of cells and bare, endless corridors (Nagel 1973:40-41).
Another style of prison similar to the above is the
high-rise plan. Oftn seen in urban prisons, the high-rise
plan is like an upright telephone-pole plan with floors of
cells replacing wings, and elevators and stairs instead of
the main corridor. As is the telephone-pole plan, the high-
rise is efficient in its channelling of all movement via a
single route: in this. case the elevator shaft. The draw-
backs include rather expensive contruction costs, the rela-
57.
tive unreliability and expense of operating elevators in a
correctional institution, and the problem of inmate move-
ment en masse (Carter, McGee, and Nelson 1975:158).
All the prison styles discussed up to this point have
reflected the ultimate concern with security: keeping the
offender incarcerated at all costs. With the spread of
inmate classification, however, the introduction of pri-
sons less reminiscent of cages has been possible. Recent
architects, no longer as obsessed with unequivocal impri-
sonment, have been able to devise a highly significant
prison design applicable to many types of inmates. This is
the open campus or cottage plan, in which cottages or dor-
mitories as well as school, dining hall, infirmary, and
other service buildings are arranged around a center mall.
Therefore, traffic between these facilities must be outdoors
as opposed to through tunnels or corridors as in conven-
tional security prisons. The campus plan is inherently
more informal, less restrictive, and generally more pleasant
than earlier designs, and is used at some medium- as well
as many minimum-security institutions (Johnston 1973:50).
Perhaps the earliest examples of "open" institutions
were penal camps, set up at former World War I army posts
by Sanford Bates, the director of the Federal Bureau of
Prisons, in about 1930. Here, the least dangerous offenders
performed "useful services," and the camps, initiated as a
solution to penitentiary overcrowding, lent strength to the
concept that a traditional, walled-in prison was not abso-
lutely imperative for all prisoners (McKelvey 1977:302).
58.
The campus plan is recognizable mostly by its lack of
obviously oppressive physical structures such as walls, high
guard towers, heavy locks, and sccurity windows. Such a
minimum-security plan is frequently seen in women's prisons
(Carter, McGee, and Nelson 1975:155). The state Correctional
Institution for Women at Muncy, Pennsylvania, is one example;
the campus-style facility is similar to a college in appear-
ance. Its brick buildings were designed by Horace Trumbauer,
a codesigner of the Philadelphia Musem of Art, and opened
"'"
in 1920. Before Muncy's construction, female felons were
housed in a wing of the Eastern State Penitentiary and at
Pittsburgh's Western State Penitentiary (reconstructed).
Only when it became known that Eastern State's warden was
using some of his womcn prisoncr::: a::: pro:::ti tuto::: did Penn-
sylvania authorities call for an all-women state prison to
be built (Schaefer 1980:1). Female febns have experienced
this kind of treatment not infrequently, it seems, at least
in the nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century
improvements on many women's reformatories had begun; these
had originated along the same guidelines as men's prisons,
incorporating cell block arrangements into most designs.
Soon campus plans, featuring fully appointed living units
housing thirty to fifty inmates apiece, replaced the tra-
ditional institutions (Gibson 1973:214). The ideology
behind the increased humanization of women's correctional
institutions stems from society's tenets concerning the
delicacy of women, whether criminals or not. In the public
mind, female felons should not be relegated to environments
59.
as harsh as those of their male counterparts, but should be
treated with greater compassion.
A note here on female prisoners: women in prison are
much fewer in number than men. For every seven arrestees,
only one is a woman; the ratio of women to men in state cor-
rectional facilities was 1 to 30 in 1973 (Nagel 1973:52),
Also at that time, a total of about eight hundred women
were held in the two extant Federal prisons for women at
Terminal Island, California, and Alderson, West Virginia.
Since then, women's divisions have been established at
Federal prisons in Fort Worth, Texas; Lexington, Kentucky;
and Morgantown, West Virginia. Roughly six thousand women
resided in state institutions in 1973 (Gibson 1973:211).
Since there are so few female prisoneru, twenty states have
no separate state facilities for them. Fifteen of these
put women in a section of the state prison for men, where
they scrub floors or perform domestic chores while not
having equal access to educational or recreational programs;
and the other five states keep female inmates either in
municipal jails or in prisons in nearby states (Gibson
1973:220). The problems of incarcerated women, therefore,
constitute a thesis in themselves.
As for the advantages of campus-plan prisons, there are
quite a few. They are impressive because they are often
physically attractive, more so than other styles; they are
rarely congested; the constant outdoor movement requires a
certain degree of decision-making on the part of the inmates,
which is rare in prisons; and, as Nagel puts it, "one does
60.
not become hypnotized by the effects of the endless cor-
ridors, the clanging locks" (1973:46). Also, they simply
seem more like a normal environment than do other prison
designs. The campus-plan prisons I visited were signifi-
cantly less oppressive than the cell blocks, high-rises, or
dormitories.
The two fundamental objections to campus-plan institutions
are: the problem of control of substantial numbers of pri-
soners under such a plan; and, the cost per inmate for
operation and construction (Carter, McGee, and Nelson 1975:
156). Campus-plan prisons are definitely more costly to
construct than many other types, in terms of required land
space as well as individual buildings. Por example, in
1965 it was estimated that a campus facility would cost ap-
proximately $20,000 per inmate to construct, whereas a
dormitory-style facility would carry a per-inmate cost of
$13,000 (McQuade 1965:185). The tax-paying public tends to
prefer an economical plan for corrections, and generally
seems unlikely to allocate funds for new construction when
old, albeit architecturally outmoded institutions exist for
purposes of incarceration.
A distinct type of prison visited by William Nagel's
team is one I have not seen; he designates it "modern col-
legiate." Found only in minimum security institutions,
its units are designed basically to be lived in and are
not at all prisonlike. They are usually quite attractive,
though not constructed to prevent escape or destructiveness
or control movement. Most importantly, they are very much
61.
like ordinary homes, with kitchens, living rooms, bathrooms,
and bedrooms. The setting is certainly conducive to reso-
cialization, says Nagel, but obviously inappropriate to all
but the lowest security-rated prisoners (1973:76). I should
imagine that this type of institution is extremely expensive,
as well.
Thus, we have examined the representative styles of
prison construction for the major part of this century:
dormitories, the Panopticon, the self-enclosing and multiple
quadrangle plans. the telephone-pole plan, the high-rise,
and the open campus plan. Not all institutions conform to
anyone of these designs, but most do. At present, the
three most widely favored plans for American prison design
are the campus plan for minimum-security prisoners; the
telephone-pole plan for large high- and medium-security
institutions; and the self-enclosing or multiple quadrangle
plan for small minimum- and medium-security facilities.
The high-rise plan will most likely be limited to urban
areas, though not necessarily---sky-scraper prisons do
exist in the midst of rolling hills and farmers' fields---
and, with luck, there will be few if any more dormitory-style
prisons constructed. This shall be discussed in a later
section.
Now, let us turn to typical as well as unusual fea-
tures of contemporary prison designs.
Section II
Part 2
CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURAL
EXAMPLES, FEATURES, AND CONDITIONS
62.
Frank Lloyd Wright once stated that form should follow
function. Interestingly, form has (more often than not) been
the focus of design, with function ensuing almost as an
afterthought. At times it seems that the structure itself
becomes the function: its integration with the site, in-
clusion of harmonious building materials, and so forth
(Sommer 1969:3). These remarks refer to architecture in
general, it is true; and yet, with the abandonment of specia-
lized systems of corrections, this has frequently been the
case in prison construction. Few John Havilands or Jeremy
Benthams have appeared on the penological scene to create
the "ideal" prison, so the job is left to prison admini-
ffirators, contractors, and architects who are not specialists
in correctional design. Indeed, in the entire country there
are perhaps a handful of architects considered prison
specialists, and even some of these do not produce much
more than an interesting geometric facade. There is a
strong need for change in this area, which shall be discussed
in the final section. For now, we shall examine several
basic aspects of present-day prisons.
There are many perspectives and considerations in-
volved in the concept of correctional institutions as phy-
sical entities. A prison's location, age, general layout,
and security provisions are of importance at the micro-
level; the type of housing, dining areas, dayrooms, and
specialized structures are significant at the relative
microlevel. These shall be examined.
63.
In 1976, there were 633 prisons in the United States,
including forty-seven Federal facilities. The great majority
of these were located in small rural towns. During the pre-
vious year, space for 36,000 inmates had been proposed or was
under construction at an aggregate cost of $720 million.
The purpose of this construction was to remedy overcrowding
in extant institutions, few of which were not over capacity
(Axilbund 1976:266). This wave of correctional facility
construction was also going on in small rural towns.
There are several reasons why new institutions are
most frequently erected in rural areas. A few are as fol-
lows:
A. Many states own land in the country, or real estate
is cheaper there.
B. Legislators with power arrange for institutions
to be built in their rural districts to combat
unemployment there.
C. Urban citizens lobby against the construction of
peni tentiaries in their neighborhoods.
D. Some officials honestly believe that a rural
setting promotes rehabilitation better than
an urban one (Nagel 1973:49).
Unfortunately, rural prisons are almost inevitably inacces-
sible by way of major thoroughfares 'and are situated at
great distances from major cities. making visits from
friends and relatives a real problem. In Ohio, for example,
all felons from Cleveland are sent to prisons in the southern
part of the state. No state prisons exist in northern Ohio
at this time.
A newsworthy item of the past year concerned the fact
that the newly constructed housing facilities for the 1980
64.
Winter Olympics near Lake Placid, New York, would, after ser-
ving the purpose of dormitories for the athletes, be con-
verted to a 500-inmate, medium-security Federal prison. One
of the main reasons behind selecting this particular contin-
uing use for the housing structures was the strong simila-
rity of security requirements for the Olympic athletes to
those for prison inmates (Potter 1978:2). The prison will
probably be less aesthetically oppressive than the majority
of medium-security prisons, simply because of its initial
purpose. Security features incorporated into the original
design include surrounding double chain-link fencing, a
security perimeter road, closed-circuit television monitors,
and complete area lighting. The prison would create jobs
for 125 to 150 persons from the nearby village of Ray Brook,
an economically depressed area; however, there are problems.
Some of the primary arguments against the "Olympic
Prison" are projected difficulties in Obtaining a racially
appropriate staff, problems in designing a good inmate
program, and most of all the rural location of the facility:
it is quite remote from the home cities of many potential
residents. Also, the facility will be located in a resort
town, whose accomodations will probably be priced far out
of the range the average inmate's family could comfortably
afford (Committee on the Judiciary 1979:19). The vicinity
of Lake Placid, then, is hardly the ideal location for
the new prison, but even now it is being prepared to accept
inmates. The government will save money by not having to
construct an entire new institution elsewhere, and the future
65.
inmates will suffer for it.
Preferably, a prison should be located near the centers
of population, not only to facilitate visiting by the fami-
lies but especially to enable the hiring of a racially
balanced staff: racial tensions are the source of much
prison violence, and it is only reasonable to attempt an
approximation of equal percentages of blacks, whites, and
Hispanics between the prisoners and the personnel (Nagel
1976,112). In addition to this, it is important that prisons
be as close as possible to places of learning and employment;
proximity facilitates the implementation of educational and,
perhaps, work-release programs for the inmates. Correc-
tional institutions far from these resources have difficulty
keeping abreast of many penological advances in related areas.
Another major problem in instituting change in penal
philosophy and practice stems from the fact that most states
have architecturally outmoded prisons to contend with---
cutodially-oriented penal institutions, built to conform to
now-inappropriate standards of confinement, even isolation.
Present-day penology requires a much wider variety of ac-
tivities and increased movement within the prison, not pro-
vided for in the old cell block designs. Inside security
is a basic problem; neither the guards nor the prisoners
receive enough protection from each other, or, for the pri-
soners, from their fellows. As Nagel says, "in such prisons,
violence is the way of life (1976: 108) .
Financial demands frequently preclude the abandonment
of these older facilities in favor of constructing new ones.
66.
Therefore, the matter of updating through remodelling comes
to the fore as the most feasible solution to this all-too-
common problem.
Gordon Hawkins gives evidence of the widespread nature
of this problem: as recently as 1976, approximately one-half
of the 100,000 prisoners housed in American maximum-security
institutions were living in prisons constructed prior to
1900. There were twenty-six maximum-security prisons with
populations of well over 1,000 inmates each; one-third of
these were overcrowded. Of, the latter, the Virginia Peni-
tentiary is the oldest, built in 1797. Violence has been
steadily increasing in its ancient cell blocks, but it con-
tinues to be kept in use (Hawkins 1976:42-43). Truly, the
extent to which outdated prisons are kept in use is shocking.
The original Eastern State Penitentiary, opened in 1829,
was in operation up to 1966, at which point it was finally
closed (Sommer 1974:10).
Further examples of ancient prisons functioning in
the United States today are cited by Melvin T. Axilbund
in his 1976 article. Until its closing in 1979, says
Axilbund, the oldest Federal prison in operation in this
country was the McNeil Island Penitentiary in Washington.
opened in 1865 as a territorial jail. The Federal Peni-
tentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas (opened in 1906), provides
only 18 square feet of living space per prisoner, whereas
three to four times that amount is required in modern
prisons. Of the state facilities operating in 1976,
twenty-four were at least one hundred years old and ten
more were built before 1898. One hundred sixteen state maxi-
mum-security facilities were in operation in 1971; nearly
half of these were opened prior to 1900, and six had opened
before 1830 (Axilbund 1976:267). In actuality, many prisons
feature a few structures or portions of the physical plant
which were built in the 1830's or earlier; but, as the
greater part of the facility is of more recent construction,
administrators cite only the later date when acked to ctate
the age of the prison.
Security is a fundamental aspect of corrections today
which is manifested in various ways. The custody level of
a prison is perhaps the most basic indicator of its type
of security and security features. Fortunately, since 1930
the number of minimum- and medium-security facilities has
consistently risen. Few maximum-security institutions have
been constructed in the United States during this time period
as compared to the past: with better-qualified personnel
and more efficient prisoner classification systems, says
the American Correctional Association, lessened custody is
possible (1972:33). This may be so, but inmates continue
to inhabit the outdated, overly-secure maximum-security
institutions. Whereas wardens estimate that only about
fifteen per cent of all prisoners require maximum custody,
56% of all adult prisoners in this country were housed In
maximum-security facilities in 1973 (Nagel 1973:57).
Overall, Nagel's prison-investigation team found vast
inconsistencies between institutions in regard to the secu-
rity requirements of inmates and the security provided by
68.
the facility. More often than not, designers had "assumed
the worst" and incorporated the highest possible security
levels for all the residents, irrespective of the actual
necessity for such extreme (and often wasteful) measures.
This led the team to believe that few prison planners try
to relate security accomodations to security needs while in
the design stage, which may result in an inefficient cor-
rectional institution (Nagel 1973.80).
The ultimate test of prison security provisions is
the efficacy with which they preclude escape. Nagel's
team discerned five principal methods employed by correc-
tional institutions to achieve this end. These are.
1. Use of guards (as distinguished from correctional
officers).
2. Classification of prisoners and subsequent assign-
ment to institutions of appropriate security levels.
3. Threat of severe sanctioning of escapees.
4. Construction of institutions with maximum internal
supervision and control.
5. Provision of adequate perimeter security, as de-
termined by the custody requirements of prisoners
assigned there (Nagel 1973.57).
The first method refers to those individuals who typically
man guard towers or patrol perimeter areas; the third is
probably not particularly effective; and the fourth is a
common technique in the field of corrections. Although it
is true that the Panopticon prison design was never widely
accepted or employed in the United states, its concept of
complete and constant surveillance has carried through in
the,'use of closed-circuit television cameras in correctional
facilities. All thinGs considered. inside electronic Euar-
ding devices are not preferable -Lo the perconal interactions
afforded by officers patrolling the institutions on foot.
It is also rarely possible to effectively observe an entire
range of cells by means of television cameras alone (Nagel
1973:37).
However. since manpower is the greatest ex-
pense entailed in prison management. some institutions at-
tempt to economize in this area. One Alabama prison fea-
tures in each housing unit a bulletproof booth containing
several television monitors for a single guard to watch; the
institution is nearly devoid of all constructive activity.
Still. discipline exists for lack of compliance with orders:
there are thus three types of living conditions here. Well-
behaved prisoners are given the privilege of sharing a tiny
s! x 8 foot cell with another man; uncooperative prisoners
are thrust into large. overcrowded dormitories filled with
bunkbeds and potential attackers; and disruptive prisoners
are confined. naked. in groups of up to eight people in
tiny. dark isolation rooms for as long as three weeks. In
these isolation cells. autism. hallucinations, psychotic
behavior. and other serious forms of pathology are frequent
(Nagel 1976:108-109).
It is absolutely tragic that. in an effort to econo-
mize. prison administrators have forfeited the safety and
control of the inmates. Large institutional areas housing
as many prisoners as will fit are only safe and secure as
long as the living units are single-occupancy cells; dor-
mitories. as I was told by one prison administrator. are
70.
"rotten---a horrible idea." Massive facilities in general
tend to be poor in terms of security, simply because of the
potentially great physical distances between a correctional
officer and a violent occurrence: the officer may not be
able to reach the spot in time to prevent injuries, or he
may not be able to see what is transpiring. Also, by the
time a lone staff member can summon aid from another part
of a large prison, it may be too late for help. The smaller
the institution, the betterr further, individual cells should
be used wherever there is the slightest possibility of
having them.
Perimeter security is usually the most noticeable char-
acteristic of a correctional institution. Traditionally,
high stone or concrete walls have enclosed prison grounds.
Since the 1930's or so, however, rising labor costs have
contributed to the substitution of chain-link fencing at
newly-constructed facilities. Most high-security prisons
with armed guard posts feature double fences and turret-
like gun towers (Carter, McGee, and Nelson 1975:159). As
Gill puts it, "security is the primary business of the pri-
son, but not its ultimate goal" (1972:116). The three fun-
damental elements with which security contends are disorder.
contraband, and escape. Gill states a preference for solid
walls over wire mesh fences as perimeter security because,
he says, the latter do not prevent the passage of contraband
and can contribute to disorder (1972:116), probably what
Gill refers to here is incitement through the visiblity of
ire-arousing incidents.
71.
New maximum- and medium-security facilities are fre-
quently found to include in their perimeter security a "buf-
fer zone" of undeveloped land and double fencing with a space
of about ten feet between them, designed to make escape more
difficult. Nagel even notes facilities where patrol dogs
roam this space. Some fences have electronic sensory de-
vices which are activated when the fence is touched; others
have outdoor television cameras for constant surveillance.
Outdoor floodlights are, of course, indispensable---particu-
larly along the perimeter and at gates (Nagel 1973:60).
Around 1912, temporary wooden barracks-like dormitories
were constructed at Occoquan, Virginia, with only a surroun-
ding barbed-wire fence for security. As it was not particu-
larly sturdy, the fence was eventually removed, and the
prison officials found that fewer men escaped from the in-
stitution without an enclosure than with one (Hopkins 1918:
7). This seems to have been an exceptional case, for I was
told at a fenceless prison that its plant design was the lar-
gest contributor to escape. Modern juvenile homes especially
tend to be completely without fences, a configuration which
frankly tempts inmates to walk away. When escapes do occur
from these institutions, the administramrs often retaliate
with such supposedly preventative measures as transfer to
more secure prisons, rigid discipline, or within-prison
charges for this additional crime, (Nagel 1973:60-62). It
seems that providing fences would be a better procedure.
A permeating characteristic of institutional life is
the involuntary participation of the inmates: they are re-
72.
pressed, controlled, and virtually incapable of making any
decisions for themselves. This fact must be fully recog-
nized in order to understand the problems of correctional
housing, for, as Nagel says, housing probably has the greatest
impact on the total incarceration experience (Nagel 1973:
63). Regardless of any activities a correctional institu-
tion provides, be they educationl, therapeutic, employ-
ment, or recreational, the inmate ineveitably spends a signi-
ficant amount of time in his or her housing unit (Nagel 1973:
63). In many institutions---particularly jails---inmates
stay in their rooms simply for lack of anything else to do.
Whatever the reason, the room is the basic unit of physical
structure for the incarcerated person, and must be thought
of as much more than simply a place to sleep.
As stated previously, Auburn and its tiny, inside cells
dominated the penal scene well into the twentieth century.
Even though more modern designs are implemented, they are
unmistakeably related to their outmoded predecessor. Cells
remain undersized and overcrowded with frequent doubling of
originally single occupancies. Sad to say, two inmates
assigned to a 5t x 8 foot cell is not uncommon (Nagel 1973:
64) .
In 1974, cell provisions varied among state correctional
institutions. Eighty-six per cent of 205 prisons with single-
occupancy cells had in-cell toilets, but only thirty-eight
per cent of these also provided in-cell drinking fountains.
Eighty-three per cent of them did, however, have sinks.
Windows existed in only fifty per cent of such cells, and
fifty-one per cent provided a desk and chair. Three- and
four-person cells were more likely to have toilets and
73.
sinks (eighty-nine per cent for each) and drinking fountains
(fifty per cent), but not a desk and chair (thirty-two per
cent). Ninety-nine per cent of all state institutions In-
cluded a general-purpose room, eighty-three per cent a
library, thirty-four per cent a gymnasium, and twenty-eight
per cent a prison industries facility or program (Axilbund
1976:268). Thus, it is apparent that all correctional insti-
tutions are not created equal, especially in terms of the
amenities---and necessities.
During their fieldwork, Nagel's team observed six
basic types of living quarters. These were single-occupancy
inside cells; single-occupancy outside cells, or rooms;
squad rooms; open dormitories; cubicles; and segregation
cells (Nagel 1973:70). These shall be briefly described.
In general, cells have either grille fronts (for maxi-
mum observation) or a door with a vision panel. Inside
cells, without access to any outside wallar window, are
quite expensive to build. They are usually quite popular
with correctional officers because of their greater secu-
rity. On the average, inside cells are smaller than out-
side cells or rooms, and feature grille fronts.
Outside cells have an outside wall with a window, and
usually contain toilet facilities---depending, of course,
on the security of the institution. The higher the level
of custody, the more likely the inclusion of a toilet and
sink in the cell.
74.
Rooms are generally the same as outside cells, but
they often have wooden doors in lieu of grille fronts. In-
mates frequently possess keys to their rooms, which tend
to be dry (without toilet or sink). I visited a prison in
which the inmates held keys to their rooms; the arrangement
seemed quite successful.
"Squad rooms," as Nagel calls them, are large cells or
small wards containing from four to eight beds. While many
detention facilities have squad rooms, few prisons of recent
construction do. At present, few mUltiple-occupancy cells
accomodate fewer than four prisoners; according to correc-
tional officers, two-man cells facilitate homosexual acti-
vity, and three-man cells promotc i'actionalism---two of the
occupants "ganging up" on the third.
Though cell conditions may be almost unbearably cramped,
inmates greatly prefer them to the congested dormitories
which are noisy, devoid of any privacy, and often the set-
tings for violence (Nagel 1973:66). Neither staff nor in-
mates like dormitory living in prison; jailers, however,
swear by them because of their lower suicide rates. Since
they are the least expensive hou?ing to maintain, dormitories
continue to exist in spite of the inherent problems. A simi-
lar situation exists in the case of multi-tiered cell blocks,
which are still being built in medium- and maximum-security
facilities. Although they simplify supervision, they are
not especially desirable: a preferable configuration of
the "stacking" concept would entail complete.ly separate
floors for the tiers. This would enable better classifi-
75
cation and treatment in quieter, more discrete units (Nagel
1973:74).
Cubicles are comprised of partial walls erected around
the individual resident's living space. They provide pri-
vacy at a low cost in comparison to individual cells, and
might be regarded as structural compromises. Still, they
are used quite effectively in several girls' and wOmens'
correctional institutions.
Many correctional institutions, particularly those
with maximum security divisions, contain some sort of segre-
gation housing. It is used to punish prison rule-breakers
or to remove troublesome inmates from the prison population
"at large." Segregation units are often referred to by
residents as "the Hole" or "the Box"; they are not the same
as special custody units, which are intended more for the
protection of the individual held there than for those left
in the general prison population. Rather, segregation units
are used to mete out discipline largely because we supposedly
know of no other solutions to the problem of needing to
modify prisoner behavior (Nagel 1973:80-82). (This point
shall be addressed in a later section.) The types of in-
dividuals who are assigned to special custody or "admini-
strative quarantine" are informers, escape artists, flam-
boyant homosexuals who incite disturbances among their
sexually deprived peers, prison activists, and chronically
assaultive individuals. Some of these types need constant
protection from other inmates; the last type mentioned needs
to be kept apart from potential victims; and some just need
76.
to be watched more closely than other inmates (Nagel 1973:
84). Some segregation units are of the basest ilk: these
are the strip cells. Here, the prisoner is confined, naked,
in a steel cage coated with reinforced concrete and con-
taining nothing but the unfortunate individual. The strip
cell is costly, dehumanizing, and, says Sommer, generally
ineffective in improving behavior (1974:11).
Many wardens are of the opinion that all segregation
units should be located within immediate proximity of the
institution's hospital facilities, in order to make obser-
vation, examinations, and emergency treatment easier (Nagel
1973:85). An arrangement of this type would indeed seem
desirable, but none of the detention or correctional faci-
lities I visited was set up in this fashion.
Actually, two problems experienced at the maximum-
security prison in Marion, Illinois, are related to the lo-
cation and design of the segregation unit. The segregation
cell blocks abut upon the recreational yards for the rest of
the prison, which makes unauthorized communication between
the segregated persons and the general population very dif-
ficult to prevent. Worse, segregated men occasionally
scream as though they are being tortured or brutally beaten;
their screams are audible to the prisoners exercising in the
yard, and general unrest ensues throughout the prison. For
these reasons, a new, windowless segregation unit is planned
(Nagel 1973:83-84). Actually, a better solution would be to
separate that particular unit as much as possible from the
rest of the prison buildings and recreational areas. If
77.
the grounds are sufficiently large, thosein segregation would
not have to be deprived of windows and natural light but
would still remain segregated.
An indispensable aspect of prison housing is, in this
day, plumbing. Prison toilets and showers are designed and
located to serve three purposes aside from the obvious.
These supplementary purposes are to ease surveillance, to
prevent excessive inmate mobility, and to withstand abuse.
Therfore, sanitary facilities in prisons are usually very
much exposed to passersby or other residents, especially in
dormitories. Here, toilets are frequently located right in
the sleeping area (Nagel 1973:76).
Cell toilets are favored by most staff because they eli-
minate the need for letting prisoners out of their cells all
the time, particularly at night when fewer personnel are on
duty. Women's and girls' institutions, however, almost
never have cell toilets except in disciplinary or reception
areas; elsewhere they provide toilet and shower stalls.
This might be interpreted as a function of women's perceived
need for greater privacy than men. Whatever the reason, the
differential provisions are obvious (Nagel 1973:76).
Dining is another salient feature of prison life. Most
large or non-campus prisons have central dining, which con-
sists of one large dining room in which all the inmates
take their meals. Cafeteria-style is the rule. Generally,
central dining halls are designed to accOlllodate only part of
the prison population at a time, thus reducing the crowd
size for anyone serving. The significance of this will be
78.
depicted in the section on violence. Newer institutions
often have four-man tables fastened to the floor; backless
stools are typically welded to crossarms connected to the
central table leg. Otherwise, long slab-like tables stretch
from one side of the room to the other. Whatever the table
design, central dining halls are often extremely noisy, and
not necessarily pleasant (Nagel 1973:91). In prison, where
the apparent "details" of life become so magnified, enjoyable
meals can make a sharp difference in inmate attitudes.
Thus, careful attention should be paid this matter.
Another type of institutional eating arrangement is
scattered dining: food is prepared in a central ,kitchen
and subsequently carted to small dining rooms located about
the usually campus- style or high-rise institution. This
system is common in juvenile institutions. Meals are often
served in dayrooms or multi-purpose rooms on each floor,
eliminating the need for excessive mealtime elevator traf-
fic in the high-rise design (Nagel 1973:91). One of the
jails I visited employs this method: an inmate "trusty"
delivers the hot cart to the housing area and the correc-
tional officer hands out the meals.
Dayrooms play an important part in most facilities of
recent construction. They are usually found in the housing
units, and may vary greatly between prisons. Some consist
merely of wide-open areas between cell blocks and outer
walls, with or without furnishings (though a television
is usually mounted on the wall). Others are large rooms
with rows of folding chairs or benches facing the omni-
79.
present television set. Still others reflect some consi-
deration for the inmate in the provision of alternatives to
"televiewing," such as ping-pong or pool, and more comfor-
table furnishings (Nagel 1973:77). Some of the facilities
I visited had virtually nothing but a few broken chairs:
the residents had pulled the television set off itswall
mounts and stripped it of all its controls. Perhaps this
was a reaction to the dayroom's lack of choice, for there
were no other recreational possibilities in that big, dis-
mal room but horseplay and destructiveness.
Whereas television and ping-pong rooms are common ln
correctional and detention facilities, there are usually no
quiet rooms or corners for checkers or chess, or private
conversations, for that matter. This aspect stems largely
from the prohibitions concerning two people being alone to-
gether in prison: homosexuality looms as a constant threat
in the eyes of some staff. Therefore, many of the leisure
activities are necessarily of an athletic nature (Nagel
1973:101). For the inmate who is not athletically inclined,
this may pose something of a problem; the role of spectator
must be assumed.
Interestingly enough, it ~ s been discerned that recre-
ational facilities in penal institutions are essential rather
than extraneous. Prisoners need an opportunity for phy-
sical workouts: it is valuable for mental as well as phy-
sical health. Nagel's team found that suicide attempts
were particularly high (three per week) at a reception cen-
ter which offered virtually no recreation and whose inmates
80.
spent most of the day sitting in their living quarters. At
an otherwise very similar reception center in a nearby state,
a multitude of indoor and outdoor recreational activities
were available to the inmates, who tended to have high
morale and positive attitudes toward the institution. These
two examples do not constitute conclusive evidence suppor-
ting the need for recreational facilities in prisons, of
course; however, parallel findings were made at a number of
institutions (Nagel 1973:97-98).
An important design consideration is the location of
treatment facilities. Many correctional administrators
feel that space should be provided in the housing units for
group and individual counseling: the emphasis is on the
living quarters for the locale of "problem-solving." Few
older institutions made provisions for such facilities within
the cell or dormitory areas, so improvisation is necessary
but often unsatisfactory. For example. dayrooms are some-
times converted to treatment space, eliminating their inten-
ded use at the expense of the residents (Nagel 1973:79).
Women's prisons, because of their typically small pop-
ulations. tend to lack work, recreational, and treatment
programs. However. women's crime rates have increased by
227% between 1960 and 1971, so perhaps these populations
will expand. For whatever reasons, women's commitment rates
to prison have not increased significantly; perhaps alter-
native programs such as half-way houses or community group
homes could be utilised to a greater extent, and more services
might be provided there (Nagel 1973:179-180).
While virtually all U. S. prisons contain a chapel, it
tends to be the most underused building of the institution.
Many designers suggest that multiple activities be carried
out in prison chapels so their space is not wasted (Nagel
1973:92-96). The chapel at one of the prisons I visited
served an interesting secondary purpose: it provided a
sanctuary for illicit conjugal visitation between inmates
and their wives or girlfriends. It seems to me that it
would be more sensible to institute officially condoned
conjugal visitation at this and other prisons than to con-
tinue the farce of regulation: the correctional officers
are well aware of the situation. and sometimes aid couples
in finding an empty room for privacy. On the whole, this
"permissiveness" keeps inmate tensions low, so the officers
are generally in favor of it.
Then again, architectural design is a major problem
confronting prison administrators who would like to insti-
tute conjugal visitation. Where shall the visitation take
place? As Nagel so intelligently points out, for a prison
staff member to escort a couple to a "specially designed
room" for a brief interlude would dehumanize the entire
relationship. Still, some facilities, particularly those
with medium- or minimum-security levels, have locations
which might be utilized for conjugal visits. It is up to
the administrators to take the steps necessary to legiti-
mize fulfillment of a very normal human need (Nagel 1973:
107).
Nagel's 1970-1972 study of American correctional archi-
82.
tecture took him and his team to over one hundred new faci-
lities throughout the country. IrJhile some of the institu-
tions exhibited innovative designs and attractive land-
scaping, the preoccupation with control remained the same.
As Nagel expressed it:
"The institutions were new and shiny, yet in all
their new finery they still seemed to harden
everyone in them. Warm people entered the system
wanting desperately to change it, but the prob-
lems they found were so enormous and the tasks so
insurmountable that these warm people turned
cold ... to survive, they became callous" (Nagel
1973:154-155).
It is clear from this statement that it is not only design
which shapes the success of a prison, as I have indicated
before, but the attitudes and philosophies of the people
involved---both staff and inmates.
This section has been an attempt to briefly describe
many of the design characteristics found in American prisons
today. In the following three sections, the manner in which
these characteristics may affect the inmate is discussed,
to be followed by a section in which possible reforms---
ideological and physical---are considered.
Now we turn to the psychological implications of im-
prisonment.
Section III
Part 1
PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
OF IMPRISONJVIENT
8).
The question of how the immediate environment affects
individual behavior has attracted considerable attention in
recent years. In studying this phenomenon, it is necessary
to separate out extraneous factors as much as possible to
determine what behavioral aspects are contingent mainly on
the environment. For the most part, it is a hazy area in
which much of the work is theoretical. Researchersemploy
various means in trying to understand the influence of de-
sign on, for example, violence.
The Bureau of the Census is involved in research of this
type, though somewhat indirectly. In 1979 the Bureau dis-
tributed questionnaires to state facilities, both regular
and community-based. Among the questions asked were several
concerning the number, capacity, and square footage of the
institution's confinement units (cells, rooms, dormitories,
and so on). Estimates were requested of the average num-
ber of hours per day that the inmates were not permitted
to leave the confinement units. The final item on the ques-
tionnaire regarded the number of inmate deaths during calen-
dar year 1978, and the nature of those deaths: natural
causes, suicide, accidental injury to self, injury by
another person, or other causes, When the data from these
questionnaires are compiled and interpreted, it may be pos-
sible to draw some connections between the amount of living
space allotted to inmates in a facility and the number of
violent deaths there.
Another factor possibly related to living space is
84.
mental or emotional stress; the questionnaires inquire as
to the number of inmates receiving prescription medication
for the treatment of these ailments. It will be very inte-
resting to read the findings of these questionnaires.
Prisons are indeed an extreme an extreme social and,
therefore, psychological configuration. The Society of
Captives, by Gresham Sykes, is a well-known analysis of the
quality of life in prison. Above all, Sykes emphasizes the
psychological pains of imprisonment: the loss of liberty,
of autonomy, social identity, material possessions to a
large extent, heterosexual relationships, and even the loss
of security---it is clear that prison is not a safe environ-
ment for the inmates (Sykes 1958:65). (More on this in an
upcoming section.) The basic role of the self as perceived
by the individual is forfeited upon admission to the prison,
and this loss is reinforced by the all-controllmgnature of
the institution. Choice is extremely limited; dehumaniza-
tion characterizes prison life. It is not surprising to
find pathological and aggressive reactions to such an un-
natural social environment.
The individual entering a correctional institution is
entering a new existence: one apart from home, family, job,
friends, and social life, for as long as several decades.
Even if only for a term of a few years, incarceration for
such a period of time is frequently devastating (Cohen and
Taylor 1972:43). The prisoner does not wish to be where
he or she is; residence in the new environment is quite
against his or her will.
85.
Upon entry to prison, the new inmate is interviewed;
medically examined; given a shower; relieved of most ,personal
clothing and belongings; allotted institutional apparel;
photographed; fingerprinted; and given a file number which,
for all administrative purposes, serves as the inmate's name.
Much of the individual's former identity is eroded by this
admissions process, though the procedure is brief (Thompson
1979:7-8). When compounded with this feeling of the loss
of self, long-term confinement in usually ugly, uncomfor-
table, and threatening surroundings is quite likely to pro-
duce even more adverse psychological reactions.
Prison inmates are necessarily exposed to radical
sensory and perceptual changes--or, more accurately, depri-
vation. As John Lilly states:
"If one is alone long enough and at levels of phy-
sical and human stimulation low enough, the mind
turns inward and projects outward its own contents
and processes; the brain not only stays active de-
spite the lowered energy levels of input and out-
put, but accumulates surplus n r ~ y to extreme
degrees" (Cohen and Taylor 1972 :44).
The above is a clear description of the conditions endured,
more or less, by the prisoners of the Pennsylvania system
and those in experimental solitary confinement at Auburn.
It is no wonder that so many mental breakdowns occurred;
the frightening fact is that the solitary system continued
to be employed at Eastern State for nearly forty years.
The prison inmate's environment is an unusually in-
tense,monotonous one. He or she must learn to cope with
this situation, for there is often little hope of release
for at least a few years (Cohen and Taylor 1972:45). As
86.
Hans Mattick so perceptively states, "in the prison com-
munity, life is driven in upon itself; there are fewer al-
ternatives and choices, and people are more directly and in-
tensely related, whether they wish it or not" (1975:185).
As shall be seen, this is highly relevant to the matter of
crowding and density in correctional institutions. Although
the general claustrophobia experienced by inhabitants of
maximum-security institutions is not as severe for inmates
of prisons with less strict security measures, it is a per-
vading aspect of prisan life (Cahen and Taylar 1972:86).
Same elabaration an this point is appropriate here.
As stated previously, the amaunt af time an inmate spends
in his or her cellar darmitary depends an the institutian's
security and custady level as well as the physical canstruc-
tian af the facility. Therefare, cells, dayroams, and dining
halls may have varying impact an the resident according to
the extent of their use. Briefly, I shall describe what
appeared to. be the basic aspects af daily existence in three
representative prisons which I was fortunate enaugh to visit.
At the minimum-security level, I visited a campus-style
institution hausing appraximately 250 inmates. All the
hausing units had single-accupancy raams to. which the ac-
cupants held keys; whereas presence in the hausing unit was
required several times a day far the "caunt" (at which paint
the carrectianal afficers ascertained whether any inmates
were missing), the rest of the day was spent in educational
classes, vocational training, ar job assignments. These
activities took place in separate buildings around the cam-
87.
pus, and meals were served in a dining hall building rather
than in the housing units. Each housing unit except for the
segregation building contained a dayroom with a television,
and I observed some residents playing basketball with equip-
ment they had "checked out" from one of the housing units.
This facility, obviously, involved substantial inmate mo-
bility and something of a choice of activities.
A medium-security prison I saw was made up of dormi-
tory buildings arranged around a central green, which was
flanked at either end by parallel buildings thus creating
an enclosed quadrangle. The dormitories were overfull,
barracks-like structures containing a dayroom at one end
furnished simply with rows of metal folding chairs set up
before a television. Fenced-off exercise yards lay between
the dormitories. There were educational classes and job
assignments to attend during the day. and a central dining
hall provided the meals for the 1200-odd inmates. There
were quite a few men sitting idly on their bunks when I
visited the dormitories; the buildings were rather gloomy
and dark at all times because the front windows had been
painted over and some of the lights were not working. The
atmosphere here was not nearly as relaxed as at the former
facility, and the correctional officers seemed more attuned
to the behavior of the inmates. (Of course, this may have
had to do with the individual personalities involved as well
as the fact that I was a female in an all-male institution.)
Both this and the minimum-security prison were surrounded by
chain-link fences and guard towers.
88.
The prototypical maximum-security prison I visited was
completely enclosed by a high stone wall with castle-like
observation turrets at the corners. Inmate movement at this
prison was relatively limited---whereas at other institutions
I had seen inmates going places singly or in groups, here no
resident seemed to be without the company of a correctional
officer. The housing units consisted of tiers of inside
cell blocks, very much like Auburn, featuring only single-
occupancy cells behind heavy bars and wire screens. The
400 inmates participated in extensive religious activities
and a few classes, but there were no vocational programs.
Most of the time the inmates appeared to stay in their hou-
sing units, either in their individual cells or out in the
space between the cells and the outer wall: this served
as their dayroom, and offered but a few chairs and a televi-
sion. At this prison the residents were much more densely
housed, it seemed, than at any other I had seen; since they
were generally confined to the housing unit except at meal
times (when they went to the central dining facility) or
during exercise periods (when they would go out into the
enclosed yard), they gave the impression of living in a
cramped fashion, one on top of the other. I should ima-
gine that, merely from what I could observe, tensions were
generally higher at the last two prisons than at the first.
Another interesting aspect of these prisons had to do
with windows. At the facility, each in-
mate's room had a good-sized window. The medium-security
facility had painted-over windows in the front, as I men-
tioned, and high-up windows along the sides of the dormi-
tories, which were all long buildings. The windows at the
maximum-security prison were very heavily barred and screened,
though of good enough size to admit quite a bit of sunlight,
and were very high up on the wall---just below the ceiling.
In a study done by Belinda Collins, it was found that the
presence of windows, especially in a "restricted and essen-
tially static environment," is very important. The presence
of a window in a room favorably affects an individual's per-
ception of him or herself: it makes the individual "feel
better" (Collins 1975:72). Windows, therefore, seem highly
desirable for all living areas of prisons. If securely and
intelligently constructed, they will pose no threat of es-
cape; and, in light of the many negative effects of prisons,
they can only constitute an improvement, if slight. Collins
found that the presence of a window in a room makes it ap-
pear more spacious, which has a positive effect on the room's
inhabitants (Collins 1975:73). Thus, it may be construed
that windows---and an outside cell design---would have made
a great difference in the tiny cells at Auburn.
Although this is not a paper on jail architecture, some
jail design features tend to apply with equal strength to
maximum-security prisons, for most jails consist of little
other than maximum-security housing. The architectural firm
of Martha L. Rothman and Elliot Paul Rothman has recently
been involved in a court case concerning the physical struc-
ture of the Manhattan House of Detention for Men. Among the
pertinent problematic design aspects cited were overly-
90.
stringent cell custody ratings, sub-standard square footages
of inmate living space, inadequate recreational facilities,
and particularly the lack of windows in cells. The Rothmans'
contention is that detainees have the right to "have visual
contact with people, places, and things" during their period
of incarceration, and assert that such a lack of contact
with the outside world can result in psychological disorien-
tation. They propose extending the jail's inside cells
across the guard's catwalk to the outside wall, and the
installation of transparent blocks of security glass in the
existing window frames. These modification would increase
the size of the cells to a minimum of seventy square feet,
and would not seriously endanger the security of the insti-
tution (personal communication with the Rothmans, 1980).
The general layout of a prison can affect the psycho-
logical well-being of the inmates as well as smaller-scale
features such as windows. Some social scientists feel that
the architectural design of men's prisons through history
has been based on the belief that male criminals are dan-
gerous and aggressive; therefore, no weaknesses may be ap-
parent in the construction of the institution, and the whole
must represent enduring strength. Women criminals, on the
other hand, have been generally regarded as requiring pro-
tection from the rest of society, rather than the reverse;
their "misguided actions," it has been thought, could best
be corrected in a homelike environment (Giallombardo 1966,
6-7). For these reasons, women's prisons have developed
as more attractive, less visibly oppressive than men's.
91.
This has actually led to women's prisons being more psycho-
logically harmful than men's. although the women's institu-
tions are more aesthetically pleasing. The smaller female
felon population in this country leads to the existence of
fewer women's prisons. Thus, as a full range of offenders
must be sent to each of the few women's prisons without
selective distribution, all women in a single institution
must follow very stringent rules designed to control the
handful of potentially dangerous females imprisoned there.
The conflict, therefore, between the charming surroundings
and the highly oppressive atmosphere, combined with the
strict regulations, serve to make the female inmate weak
and dependent. Ironically. prison is just the place where
a woman must learn to be independent and survive while
incarcerated as well as upon release (Gibson 1973:221-222).
The same is true of male offenders, of course, but usually
not to as great an extent.
Not only can prison create conflicting psychological
clues for the inmate; it can also function as an environ-
mental vacuum of sorts, draining the inmate of interest and
activity. Some researchers feel that prison lethargy or in-
ertia is due primarily to the drab institutional surroundings,
which fail to provide stimulation for the mind. (It is
also related to the eradication of productive prison labor,
as described earlier.) One prisoner contended that he could
not do much reading in prison because the was not
conducive to concentration; other reasons include insuffi-
ciently lit cells, lights-out regulations in some institu-
92.
tions, and distracting noise (Sommer 1974:34). Nagel reports
that high noise levels, inadequate lighting, and lack of
privacy were the three problems most frequently cited by
inmates of the correctional institutions he visited (1973:
25)
In many prison cells there is a blatant lack of furni-
ture: often there is only a bunk and a toilet. This fre-
quently stems from a belief that whatever the prisoners are
provided with, they will destroy. When furnishings are pro-
vided, they are often made of indestructable materials and
affixed to the floor or walls. This may satisfy the admini-
strative officials who fear weapons made from chair legs,
but for the inmate it produces an atmosphere of psychological
oppression. As Sommer puts it: "the harder the environ-
ment, the more the behavior of the occupants will be dis-
torted from its natural state" (1974:68). Sommer goes on
to suggest the provision of furnishings made of soft, non-
weapon materials such as foam to help in humanizing the in-
mate's living environment, physically and psychologically
(1974:70). This would be especially beneficial in isolation
cells where, as was mentioned previously, the harsh barren-
ness of the physical environment frequently produces autism,
hallucinations, and psychoses in occupants (Nagel 1973:82).
As long ago as 1918, Alfred Hopkins was trying to draw
attention to the aesthetic aspects of prison architecture
and their effects on the prisoner. He relates the story of
a warden who had great difficulty in getting the inmates to
work in the prison's vegetable garden; when he decided to
93.
plant flowers there as well as vegetables, however, there
was actual competition among the men to see who should be
detailed to work there (Hopkins 1918:22). The anecdote is
indirect and saccharine, to be sure, but the sentiment is
clear: the prison's design and appearance have the capa-
bility to influence staff as well as inmates. It cannot
be forgotten that the staff members are exposed to various
aspects of the prison environment on as regular a basis as
the inmates themselves. To handle the oppression of the
correctional environment, it seems, their behavior---when
not in the presence of the inmates---ranges from jocular
to hazardous. Therefore, the staff and their response to
the prison environment is an important consideration, one
not frequently cited.
In a great many ways, Hopkins was ahead of his time
with his proposals for prison design. Even so, he failed
to go far enough in some of his plans. A very basic ex-
ample may be found in the execution of his 1915 plan for
the Westchester County Penitentiary and Workhouse in White
Plains, New York. Hopkins proudly cites his use of bright
red tile for the dining hall, purposely avoiding "the dull
monotony of color usual in the prison building," but also
reveals that he had the cells painted "a soft gray" (1918:
12). In my opinion, the appearance and tone of the indi-
vidual cell is one of the most important aspects of prison
design. In light of the considerable amount of time today's
prison inmate spends in his cell, cheerful colors can make
a distinct difference in his mental well-being. Also,
94.
Hopkins's book includes a photograph showing what he calls a
"recreation corridor" in the Westchester Penitentiary; it
consists solely of a long, wide hallway with chairs arranged
in militarily straight rows along each side, and is more
reminiscent of a mental institution than anything else. As
the prison descriptions in this paper suggest, configurations
of this type are not particularly uncommon even tOday. Even
In the dayroom, the least expensive alternative is what most
often appe.ars; it truly makes one wonder what was done before
the advent of television.
Different theorists see the environment as affecting
the individual in various ways. Sykes and Goffman, for
example, concentrate on the environment's dehumanizing ef-
fects and the psychologically painful deprivations it causes.
Interestingly, gerontological theorists have a certain rele-
vance to the field of corrections; they. too, deal with
people who are often prisoners of their environment---people
who rarely have the opportunity to escape. Residents of
nursing homes experience the impact of the "total institu-
tion" just as much as prison inmates in many ways. There-
fore, I was interested to see what some of the well-known
theorists in gerontology thought about the effect of the
environment on the individual.
Robert Newcomer (1973) sees serving the psychosocial
needs as the most important function of the immediate en-
vironment. The four basic psychosocial need are, briefly:
1. A need for order---recognition of an environ-
mental context in which the individual may act.
2. Social connectedness---a need for control .over
social contact with others.
3. Identity---a need for understanding one's indi-
viduality and the way in which one fits into a
situation.
95.
4. Effectance---a person's need to affect, manipulate,
and perhaps control his or her environment (New-
comer 1973:80-82).
Obviously, only the first---a need for order---is truly
provided by the prison environment; indeed, the order here
is overly The inmate's life is entirely managed
by the institution and its monotonous procedures. Only in-
mates living in single-occupancy cells or rooms with per-
sonal keys can attain the second need, and even then there
is not complete privacy. The prison inmate has little if
any actual individuality: he or she has been stripped of
it upon entry. Finally, the inmate has no control over the
environment; it frequently controls the inmate. It is ap-
parent that the prison environment works very hard against
the fulfillment of these needs as set forth by Newcomer.
It would seem that the majority of prison designers and ad-
ministrators had intended that the prison environment be
psychologically detrimental.
M. Powell Lawton, a much-admired gerontologist, sug-
gests that an individual's physical environment is most
likely to affect his or her well-being as a result of two
factors. The first is the strength of the physical stress
the environment places on the person. This includes sen-
sory deprivation, extreme heat or cold, and lack of privacy.
The second is a low level of personal resources: in other
words, if a person has little competence in one area, it is
96.
likely that the environment will have a greater effect on
his or her behavior (Lawton 1975:55-56). If such is the
case, inmates of correctional institutions are perhaps the
most likely group in society to be negatively affected by
the environment---they have not a single advantage.
Lawton goes on to state most perceptively that "people
tend to judge their environment in terms of how competent
it makes them feel" (Lawton 1975:8]). The fewer physical
and psychological barriers imposed by the immediate en-
vironment, the more competent the individual will feel. It
is no wonder that maximum-security custody can have such a
devastating effect on the inmate: he or she is made to
feel completely helpless and inadequate. Violence might
almost be considered a normal reaction to such severe en-
vironmental constraints.
The psychological implications of imprisonment are often
difficult to relate directly to the environment; the social
configurations present in correctional institutions are not
to be overlooked when considering this matter. Further
research will be of great importance to this area of con-
cern---perhaps some of the haziness can be cleared away.
A very current and, if you will, pressing aspect of
prison life today and in the past is crowding. It is sig-
nificant for a number of reasons: it can be the source of
both pathological manifestations and extreme violence; it
is a characteristic of the majority of prisons in this coun-
try; and many of its effects on humans are not well understood.
Therefore, we shall examine institutional crowding.
Section III
Part 2
CROWDING IN PRISON
97.
Studies of crowding and behavior require a recognition,
at the most fundamental level of consideration, of the dif-
ference between density and crowding. Density is a physical
condition involving spatial limitation. Crowding is an ex-
periential state in which, according to Daniel Stokols, "the
restrictive aspects of limited space are perceived by the
individuals exposed to them." In other words, crowding is
associated with social and personal dimensions as well as
spatial ones. Density may be seen as a prerequisite to
the experience of crowding, and both lead to certain incon-
veniences such as a loss of privacy or inhibited movement.
Of course, this depends on the perceptions of the persons
involved, as stated above (Stokols 1972:275). Crowding
may be perceived positively by some persons in particular
situations; for example, a crowded but enjoyable party is
usually enhanced by the densely peopled room. This, however,
is a situation from which the participants are able to depart
when they so choose. Such is not the case in prison.
Crowding directly reflects a concept of imprisonment
as punishment. Deprivation of personal freedom is a severe
sanction in a country which places such emphasis on liberty;
to carry out the prison sentence in an overpopulated envi-
ronment can become unbearable. Prisons have been over-
crowded almost since the formal prison system began; never-
theless, these conditions should not be allowed to continue.
It is to be hoped that the near future will see improvement
along these lines.
98.
In March of 1976, Corrections Magazine reported the
highest U. S. prison population in history. To handle the
overflow, some states began to utilize trailers, tents, air-
plane hangars, and even old warships as correctional housing.
Ohio prepared to reopen the huge, outdated prison at Colum-
bus (built in 1830 and featuring cells measuring ~ x 5 x 8
feet high), which had been preyiously closed upon the
opening of the Lucasville Prison in 1972. A nation-wide
survey of adult incarceration in state institutions for
1977 revealed the states with the highest incarceration
rates as being mostly in the South or "Near South" (Nagel
1977:156-158). At this time, William Nagel decided to re-
evaluate his stance against prison construction, which he
had taken up after his 1970-1972 team study revealed the
state of the prisons in this country. Among other methods,
Nagel employed the examination of crime and incarceration
rates, population ethnicities and change, per capita income
levels, and the relative liberalism or conservatism of the
fifty states in order to discern any improvement or decline
in prisons. His findings included the following:
A. There is no distinct relationship between a state's
rated conservatism or liberalism and its reported
crime rate; however, there is a relationship with
incarceration rates---conservative states imprison
more people, liberal states fewer.
B. States with high poverty levels often have lower
crime rates but higher incarceration rates---this
supports the idea that it is the poor who populate
the nation's prisons (Nagel 1977:161).
The investigation revealed fifteen states as having in-
creased the capacity of their adult prison systems by fifty-
99.
six per cent between 1955 and 1976. In addition, the prison
populations in these same states increased by fifty-seven
per cent and the crime rate went up 167 per cent during the
given time period,. In 1976, this group of states faced the
most serious prison overpopulation problems in the country
(Nagel 1977:162-163). Needless to say, Nagel maintained his
position supporting a moratorium on prison construction.
Nagel's was not the only study indicating problems of
overcrowding. It was apparent from the South Carolina Cor-
rections riot survey that overcrowding existed at several
of the 204 institutions from which responses were received---
questionnaires were sent to prisons in all parts of the
United States. Some of the figures which suggested over-
population included the total of two percent of the "non-
riot" facilities reporting their structure as having been
designed to house more than two thousand residents, whereas
four per cent of these same facilities indicated that their
actual inmate populations fell within this range (South
Carolina Department of Corrections 1973:92). The term
"non-riot" referred here to those prisons which had not
experienced any riots or disturbances within the previous
four years; a riot was defined as an incident involving fif-
teen or more inmates and resulting in property damage and/
or physcial injury. The vast majority of the prisons par-
ticipating in this study were designed for resident popu-
lations of 501 to 1.500 inmates: oversized, by present
standards.
The Department of Justice also recognizes the wide-
100.
spread problem of overcrowding in U. S. prisons and jails; it
proposes employing pre-trial or post-conviction release pro-
grams, where feasible, to bring down inmate populations, and
recommends the use of alternative housing fac ili ties (1978: 9)
Still, these are merely suggestions; as they are not en-
forced regulations, they are not necessarily followed. It
is procedurally easier, it seems, to hand down a prison sen-
tence than to go through the "complicated process" of arran-
ging for a release program. In addition, society's mem-
bers are inclined to feel indignant and disquieted about
convicted felons going loose in the community. Thus, the
"lock-ern-up" ideology prevails even now.
A few prison architects have taken steps against the
onset of overcrowding in the correctional institutions
they have designed. For example, the Soledad Prison in
California contains single cells which were deliberately
designed to obstruct future multiple occupancies. The cells
are of such dimensions that the inmate's cot fits only
against the one wall with a window; the toilet and door
occupy enough space to prevent the placement of another cot
on the floor, and a double-deck cot would necessarily block
the window (Glaser 1964:155). Unfortunately, the descrip-
tion suggests that the cells are not very large for even
a lone occupant, thus diminishing their positive function
of precluding the possible doubling-up of residents. In
one Ohio prison, a court recently ruled that to house two
inmates in a cell designed to hold only one is in viola-
tion of the law. The case is now being appealed, but with
101.
luck and good sense the ruling will stand. Cases of this
sort are helpful in bringing prison conditions to the atten-
tion of the public; more of them can only increase the pos-
sibility of effective prison reform.
The six hundred and thirty-three state and Federal cor-
rectional institutions mentioned previously housed 250.000
prisoners at the beginning of 1976. Of these only 24.135
or ten per cent were Federal inmates (Axilbund 1976:265).
The Federal prison system is at this time comprised of
thirty-eight correctional institutions. nine community
treatment centers. and four hundred contract community
treatment centers throughout the country. In August. 1977.
the total Federal institutional population was at an all-
time high of 30.400; by March of 1979 the total was down to
26.000 people. Norman Carlson. director of the Federal
Bureau of Prisons. cited two main reasons for the decrease
in population: greater use of community treatment centers
prior to release. and a decline in the number of offenders
committed to Federal institutions by the courts. In spite
of the reduction. however, the Federal system was fourteen
per cent over intended capacity in it facilities as of
March, 1979 (Committee on the Judiciary 1979:2-3). At the
same point in time, the F. B. O. P. had eight new correc-
tional institutions in the process of being designed or
constructed and two minimum-security prison camps opening
on deactivated military bases in Texas and California. These
additional facilities were expected to alleviate the problem
of overcrowding (Committee on the Judiciary 1979:4),
102.
It is apparent that the situation in U. S. prisons is
not good at this time. Even so, in light of the amount of
prison construction under way, a pertinent issue is the de-
termination of the optimal size for an individual-occupancy
cell. This will naturally vary according to the number of
hours per day the inmate is confined therein, and even in
consideration of the cultures in question: some peoples
psychologically require more physical space than others.
At any rate, to allow for temporary overcrowding, a single
cell (says Sommer) should be able to accomodate two inmates
to be of sufficient size (1974:36). I agree that cells should
be as large as Sommer suggests, but under no circumstances
must occupancy in a single cell be doubled: this is of vital
importance to the successful functioning of corrective
treatment.
An enforced set of standards specifying minimum space
requirements for prison inmates would prove highly useful
for both the inmates and the prison officials. Such a set
of standards would prevent the overcrowding which can lead
to disturbances and assaults, and facilitates homosexual
behavior. If spatial standards were enacted as a statute,
prison administrators could more easily obtain funding for
the renovation of existing facilities and, if unavoidable,
the construction of new prisons to meet population needs.
This is the basis of a problem which exists concerning the
prison capacity standards set forth by the American Correc-
tional Association's Commission on Accreditation for Correc-
tions. Although Federal funding for prison construction is
103.
somewhat contingent upon approval by the A. C. A., gained
by meeting its standards, the Commission has no enforcement
power. Therefore, compliance with structural standards is
voluntary on the part of the prison. This is why oversized
facilities continue to be constructed. At this time, a pro-
posal for a 1,200-inmate prison has been passed by the Ohio
state legislature, and shall soon be erected in the southern
part of the state.
Since 1900, there have been twenty-seven state and
Federal prisons erected with capacities of over 1,000 in-
mates each; such a facility was built at Lucasville, Ohio,
as recently as 1972. Half of these prisons are overcrowded.
The largest is the State Prison of Southern Michigan, with
an intended capacity of 4,764; it contained over 6,000 in-
mates at certain times during the 1950's (Hawkins 1976:43).
Part of the reason for these structural monstrosities is
the unfortunate but predictable fact in the field of correc-
tions that the smaller the inmate population, the higher
the cost per inmate to build and manage a prison. In fact,
1973 figures for the state of Wisconsin show that while the
annual cost of maintaining a male prisoner at the Correc-
tional Institution for Men at Fox Lake was $4,500, a female
prisoner at the women's reformatory at Taycheedah cost over
$10,000 per year; this was so even though the educational
and vocational programs at Fox Lake far exceed those at
Taycheedah. It is the staff and security costs for a
small institution that make the difference (Gibson 1973:220).
This is why prisons continue to become overcrowded instead of
104.
new prisons being constructed: it is more economical to
cram people into the existing institutions.
The matter of privacy is an extremely important consi-
deration in terms of the inmate's psychological well-being.
It is a major problem in institutions of all kinds; there
never seems to be a moment to oneself. Privacy is neces-
sary to prevent the environment from constantly manipulating
the individual, rather than the other way around. Prison
inmates are often faced with a blatant lack of privacy.
They may choose to adapt to a perpetually public situation
by withdrawing socially---refusing to interact with others
even when surrounded by them---or, by exhibiting overtly
aggressive behavior. Therefore, the matter of individual
privacy should be carefully considered in planning prison
environments. Now, there is an inherent problem: prison
is, by definition, a place where one is kept and supervised,
for the protection of society and of the individual. Sur-
veillance is a fundamental aspect of the correctional insti-
tution, and privacy must therefore be permitted in moder-
ation---the prisoner should have some time to be alone at
least occasionally.
Studies of open society have found that the more often
people interact with each other, the stronger the friend-
ship ties may be which develop (Giallombardo 1966:9). This,
however, does not apply to situations in which the indivi-
duals involved are forced to interact or remain in close
proximity, day in and day out without respite. as is the
case in captivity. There is, instead, an enhanced potential
105.
for the development of hostile, aggressive feelings. In a
1972 survey carried out by the South Carolina Department of
Corrections, inmates were asked to name one area of prison
life they would like to Change. The two most frequent re-
sponses were "the administration" and "personal privacy"
(South Carolina Department of Corrections 1973:113). Other
studies have found similar results: privacy is very much
on the inmate's mind at all times.
One of the shortcomings in the data in this area has
to do with the majority of crowding stUdies having been
performed on animals instead of humans, for obvious ethical
reasons. Therefore, it is not always easy to relate crow-
ding studies to human situations except in very broad terms.
For example, D. E. Davis performed a series of experiments
on rats, from which he concluded that humans need a small
unit of housing with sufficient privacy and a stable popu-
lation in order to maintain a healthy existence (1971:144).
Researchers such as Fogg (unpublished) have taken these re-
sults to indicate that privacy in the prison environment is
necessary as a means of controlling sensory stimulation
(Fogg, p. 10).
A few studies have been done which are concerned spe-
cifically with conditions of crowding, density, and privacy
in prison life. In a 1971 paper, Sommer investigated the
prison cell as constituting an environment, Here, he viewed
the correctional facility as a place in which the inmate has
"an enhanced need for privacy" (Sommer 1971:18). In most
prisons, this need is not met, as has been discussed. Still,
106.
particular structural designs provide more opportunities
for a modicum of solitude than others, thus possibly bene-
fitting the inmate's mental well-being. For example, single-
occupancy rooms contribute substantially to the potential
privacy of prisoners.
Even so, there is hardly ever a chance for elected
solitude in the typical maximum-security prison. Though a
prisoner may have a single-occupancy cell, he or she is
visible to the guards either through the window in the door,
the grille front of the cell, or by means of an electronic
device built into the walls or floor which monitors all move-
ment. Thus, even when the staff member is not physically
present, a television camera often suffices in his or her
place (Cohen and Taylor 1972:79). Occasionally, a prisoner
may act up purposely to be assigned to solitary confinement
for a brief period of solitude.
The lack of privacy in prisons remains a problem even
when steps are taken to alleviate it, such as giving the
inmates keys to their own cells, or constructing smaller
dining halls and cell blocks. Because of their economic
attractiveness, dormitories are often selected by admini-
strators on a budget, but group living of this type sharply
reduces and inmate's chances for privacy. On the other
hand, an excess of privacy (such as that available in some
prison "honor dormitories") can strengthen the inmate sub-
culture---an undesirable result when criminal values are
espoused, which is typically the case (Sommer 1974:40-41).
Thus, it may be inferred that prison inmates, for their own
safety and that of the staff, need a certain amount of
supervision.
107.
Taking the issue of the inmate subculture one step fur-
ther, it has been established through several studies that
differences in group formation are frequently due to the
individuals' spatial proximity and the basic architectural
aspects of living arrangements (Giallombardo 1966:6).
Therefore, one might estimate that the housing assignments
within prison and the facility's architectural plan may
direct or discourage certain friendships or groupings, and
perhaps prevent instances of violence stemming from par-
ticular antagonistic associations. Some physical designs
promote the consolidation of inmates into undesirable social
configurations; of this, institutional administrators should
be aware.
Summing up the discussion of privacy, it must be re-
peated that single cells are of great importance in prison
housing. Weaker inmates are protected from their fellows;
homosexual relationships, especially involuntary ones,are
more easily controlled; and, of course, the prisoner ex-
periences somewhat more privacy and personal dignity than
when in shared quarters (Sommer 1974:7). Although they are
more expensive to construct, single cells chould be the
prime consideration in prison renovation and new prison
design.
Aside from general discomfort and a lack of privacy,
crowding in correctional institutions can produce patho-
logical behavior in prisoners. Crowding and stimulus depri-
108.
vation in prisons are highly salient topics for study in
order to understand inmate behavior, in that these factors
oppress, confine, and constrain the prisoner. If the con-
ditions of crowding and stimulus deprivation were recog-
nized and eliminated, the more serious effects upon the
inmates could be decreased (Sommer 1974:42-44).
In attempting to study correlations between crowding
and elevated blood pressures, David D'Atri decided to use
a prison setting. This was because the environment in
prison, as we know, may not only be crowded, but its inha-
bitants are forced to stay there and be continuously sub-
jected to the effects of the environment. The inmates
studied were males around the age of twenty-six, 71% of
whom were white, 27% black, and 2% of other ethnicities.
Three correctional institutions provided the data for the
study. Modes of housing varied among them: Institution A
featured single-occupancy, double-occupancy, and multiple-
occupancy cells; Institution B had single cells and two
large dormitories; and Institution C had single cells and
one large dormitory. After considering a number of perti-
nent variables, D'Atri found a distinct association between
inmates' perceived crowdedness and elevated blood pressures.
Inhabitants of dormitories in all three institutions exhi-
bited higher blood pressures and pulse rates than their
counterparts assigned to single cells. Here, the degree
of crowding was defined in terms of physical, social, and
personal variables as well as square footages. The dorm
residents were more likely to be confronted by threatening
------------- ---
109.
interpersonal relations such as inmate assaults or rapes and
territorial conflicts; residents of individual cells were
not as likely to be faced with these problems (D'Atri 1975:
247-48) .
Among the criteria used to measure perceived crowding
are polar tests administered to inmate subjects, palmar
sweat scores (also tied to stress), and urine testing. It
has been found that individuals who experience stress emit
significant amount of catecholamines and steroids in their
urine; therefore, it is fairly easy to analyze urine samples
of persons experiencing overcrowded conditions and thence
determine their level of stress due probably to environmen-
tal factors (Paulus, McCain, and Cox 1973:428).
Stokols (1972) states that where crowding is extreme
and few means of Changing the situation exist, the most
frequent responses will be behavioral. The crowded indi-
vidual may exhibit aggression, discomfort, or hormonal
imbalance, but will remain at all times preoccupied with
the matter of reducing or eliminating spatial constraints
(Stokols 1972:276). This is carried out in a 1975 study
by Paulus and associates, in which prisoners'reactions to
crowded conditions were examined. The investigation revealed
those inmates housed in high-density areas (especially dor-
mitories) to be less tolerant of overcrowding than inmates
whose living areas were less densely populated. Also, the
overcrowded inmates regarded their immediate physical en-
vironment much more negatively than did their less-crowded
peers (Paulus et. al. 1975:90). Obviously, the more crowded
110.
a prison housing area, the greater likelihood of violence
resulting due to reduced tolerance and dissatisfaction with
the immediate architectural environment. Paulus's study also
showed that the dormitory residents displayed more negative
personality tendencies and a greater desire for privacy
than inmates in single cells, even when the spatial den-
sity was lower for the dormitory residents (Paulus et. al.
1975:88). Again, I shall repeat: dormitories constitute
a poor mode of housing and should not be utilised in cor-
rectional institutions.
Frequency of illness complaints is a fairly reliable
indicator of psychological stress. Research conducted on
naval vessels and college campuses has shown that stress
induced by crowding is related to complaints of illness.
In light of this. McCain and his associates investigated
crowding and all illness complaints possibly instigated by
stress in a prison and a county jail. McCain's findings
supported those of Paulus '(1975): social density has a
greater impact on the prisoner than does spatial density.
The more-crowded dormitory residents exhibited the most
symptoms of illness even though they actually averaged more
floor space per person than residents of one- and two-man
cells, and there was no apparent temporal adjustment fac-
tor through which illness complaints gradually decreased
over time in the dormitories (McCain, Cox, And Paulus 1976:
284-288) .
A 1959 study of crowded urban housing in France re-
vealed an association between very limited amounts of floor
111.
space per person per housing unit, and an increased inci-
dence of social and psychological pathologies. There was
a definite link between crowding, illness, and crime (Hall
1966:161). If this was the case with free persons living
in an open society, imagine the implications for incarcer-
ated individuals whose overcrowded environment advances
deviant behavior. Feelings of claustrophobia are often
experienced by prison inmates inhabiting small wings. Most
of a maximum-custody inmate's day is spent in his or her cell
or wing, and when the area is only a few feet wide, it is
easy to feel trapped (Cohen and Taylor 1972:79). In one
of the jails I visited, the width of the lounge area for
psychiatrically disturbed women is only about five feetr
a staff member was of the opinion that the lounge's extremely
confining nature contributed to the pathological behavior of
the residents.
D. E. Davis, in a 1971 work, describes the ways in
which crowding can actually alter the physiological func-
tion of humans through a variety of conditions caused by
an increase in the environment's level of stimulation. The
larger the group of individuals condensed into a setting,
the greater the unavoidability of social interaction,
which may lead to stress (Davis 1971:143). In prison,
this stress is frequently manifested as physical violence.
This brings out the matter of spatial behavior.
In discussing spatial behavior, two basic terms must
be distinguished: "personal space" and "territory." Con-
ceptually speaking, personal space is carried around with
112.
the individual like a sort of invisible surrounding bubble;
territory, on the other hand, remains relatively stationary
and is frequently demarcated in some visible manner. In-
vasion of personal space by another may lead to withdrawal,
while invasion of territory may incite defensive violence
(Sommer 1959:248). Territoriality, says Fogg, has some
roots in human instincts, though not all humans respond
with aggression to territorial intrusion. The same is
true for animals---some species will behave defensively upon
territorial violation, and other will not (Fogg, p. 16).
Two studies done by A. H. Esser suggest that aggression
is directly related to status and territoriality. In his
findings, Esser states that an individual with high peer
status or low societal status is more prone to violence---
at least in an institutional setting (Esser 1973:132).
Territoriality was evident at one of the jails I visited;
the inmates would claim chairs in the dayroom as their "own."
When another individual "invaded" the territory by sitting
in someone's chair, a violent confrontation sometimes re-
sulted. Since there were fewer chairs than inmates in
this particular wing of the jail, the stage was well set
for violent incidents. Again, this depicts the way in which
seemingly unimportant details come to be all-important in
prison: the smallest features of everyday life are magni-
fied to an unrecognizable size.
Dr .. Augustus Kinzel performed a personal-space experi-
ment involving prison inmates who had histories of violent
assaults while incarcerated, and inmates who had not. Many
113
of the former group became violent with little apparent
provocation. The experiment revealed the "body-buffer zones"
of the violent individuals as being nearly four times larger
than those of the non-violent individuals. Kinzel defines
body-buffer zone as "the area around a person within which
anxiety is produced if another enters" (Kinzel 1970: 59) . In
other words, body-buffer zone can probably be regarded as
congruent to personal space. Personal space is partly
determined by the subject's internal personality traits,
as was found in the Kinzel study. If it is presumed that
the discomfoTIof personal space violation is tied to aggres-
sion, then this may be interpreted as a possible source of
prison violence. Since prison is a restricted environment
from which withdrawal (a typical reaction to personal space
intrusion) is often impossible, the alternative may well
be an aggressive response (Fogg, p. 20).
Hildreth and his associates confirmed Kinzel's findings
in a study of their own; they theorized that the particular
discomfort displayed by prisoners when approached from the
rear might be attributable to fear of homosexual attack.
In fact, they hypothesized that homosexual anxiety in general
might be partly responsible for large body-buffer zones in
some incarcerated individuals (Hildreth, Derogatis, and
McKusker 1971:1641-1644). I disagree somewhat with this
contention, simply because it is a well-known fact that
neither humans nor animals like to be approached from the
rear, for even if there is no evil intent, the object of
the approach may feel the advent of a sneak attack.
114.
Violent behavior as a reaction to crowding is generally
the most extreme expression of distress with the situation,
and is usually the result of the individual's inability to
cope in any other manner (Fogg, p.?). We shall now look
at violence in particular, and attempt to discern whether
certain types of prison environments encourage the invasion
of personal space or promote inmate aggression in other ways.
Section III
Part 3
VIOLENCE IN PRISON
115.
Violence is an ever-present threat in correctional insti-
tutions. When large numbers of people who have been removed
from society are placed together in a confined environment
with little to do, tensions rise and petty irritations are
given much more weight than their due; then unrest strikes,
on a small or a large scale, and injuries or death result.
Only in the case of massive riots does the public usually
become aware of the occurrence; in general, all but those
directly involved in the prison and its management---admini-
strators, staff, and inmates---remain oblivious to aggressive
occurrences there.
Through history, a general measure of the "success"
of a prison has been its lack of escapes, riots, or vio-
lence. Since the abandonment of the solitary and silent
systems, however, firm inmate control has been significantly
more difficult to maintain. Inmate mobility and interaction
reduces their absolute domination by the staff (Clemmer 1958:
ix). Therefore, prisons today are often described as "bree-
ding grounds" for criminal behavior. It seems only logical
to expect that putting a criminal---an individual with
antisocial attitudes---in a degrading, dehumanizing envi-
ronment will only worsen his outlook and behavior (Sommer
1974:8). Indeed, when the criminal is thusly placed along
with many others having similar attitudes, chances for re-
habilitation seem slim.
The prison environment is one of tension and hatred,
anxiety and potential conflict. These characteristics arise
116.
from the physical and psychological constraints the prison
places on the inmate; violence is a predictable product of
this environment (Flynn 1976:116). Particularly repressive
institutions are especially prone to outbreaks of violence,
a fact which must be borne in mind in any consideration of
maximum-security facilities or those with extraordinarily
stringent discipline and procedures. Indeed, the majority
of stabbings and other injuries of a serious nature have
been found to occur at the institutions most concerned with
security. Stock explanations for this tend to point toward
the "type of inmate," not the type of place; and yet, as
all behavior occurs within the context of the environment,
it may well be inferred that the prison environment itself
could be to blame (Sommer 1974:19).
In speaking of institutional aggression, the focus is
primarily on intentional interpersonal violence: injurious
assaults, premeditated or not, usually on a small scale.
Homosexual rape is included but not dwelt upon particularly;
the same sorts of design features facilitate both sexual
and non-sexual assault. Riots are considered as well, al-
though little evidence has been given suggesting the con-
clusive, direct influence of the architectural environment
on the mass behavior of individuals, except for the matter
of overcrowding. Mass disturbances are usually generated
by a combination of factors, one of which may be the state
of the physical plant; however, violence in relation to
prison design is frequently easier to perceive at the indi-
vidual level.
117.
Different aspects of the prison environment can pro-
duce violent behavior, to be sure. Yet, a good many of those
in prison were violent long before they ever became inmates.
Their violence may have stemmed from growing up in an abu-
sive home or in a violent neighborhood, or simply in the
United states with its "national ethic" of violence (Nagel
1976:105). A 1966 study by D. R. Jaman and associates de-
scribed seven characteristic traits of the typical violent
offender. These were:
--Familial deprivation (broken home, etc.).
--Low level of education and unstable employment record.
--Record of institutional violence.
--Arrest record prior to age 12.
--Non-white and young.
--History of epileptic or suicidal behavior.
--Personality disorders, as measured by the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory (Jaman et. al.
1966: 14) .
This study, then, concentrates on the offender's personal
history and does not take into account the effects of the
prison environment.
The 1974 study of the North Carolina state prison sys-
tem by Ellis, Grasmick, and Gilman revealed two factors
which related significantly to prison aggression: inmate.
age and rate of visitation. The younger the inmate and the
fewer outside visitors received, the more likely an inci-
dent of violence. The investigative level here, however.
is that of the institution as a whole rather than individuals;
causation is regarded as general, not specific. Therefore,
118.
it is difficult to draw effective conclusions from this
study as to the sources of institutional violence (Ellis,
Grasmick, and Gilman 1974:30). Since fewer outside visitors
leads to more incidents of violence in prisons, it may be
construed that an out-of-the-way, rural location might ac-
tually contribute to the aggressive actions of the offenders
imprisoned there. This should be realized when considering
possible sites for the construction of new correctional
institutions.
Glaser feels that younger inmates, being more aggres-
sive, need a highly structured environment which will in-
hibit violent tendencies instead of the relatively free
environments in which youthful offenders are typically
placed (1964:218). Glaser here regards the prison as a
social structure, and is concerned with the success of the
functioning of that structure rather than the success of
treatment or rehabilitation. Whatever the case, it has
been shown that the more restrictive the institution, the
more likely it is that violent incidents will occur; thus,
I must disagree.
Fogg proposes another source of prison violence, simi-
lar to the concept of the "self-fulfilling prophecy": when
an individual is labelled or classified according to ear-
lier, violent behavior, he or she may learn to behave in
a habitually violent manner. Since others anticipate vio-
lent actions from him or her, the individual complies by
"living up to expectations" (Fogg, p.22). The physical
environment can also constitute a self-fulfilling prophecy,
119.
figuratively speaking; bars and locks imply that the resi-
dent is a dangerous, aggressive being whose animalistic ten-
dencies require dehumanizing treatment Just as some theo-
rists feel that bars tempt escape, a hard and oppressive
environment may provoke violence.
At times the violence occurs on a large scale. An epi-
demic of riots spread over all types of prisons during the
1950's. In 1953. the American Prison Association's Committee
on Riots put forth a report listing what had been determined
as the fundamental causes of the disturbances. "Oversized
and overcrowded facilities" was the fifth item on a list of
seven (American Correctional Association 1972:30). As sug-
gested previously. violent behavior on a mass level may of-
ten be associated with overcrowding. In 1970 and 1971. pri-
son riots spread almost contagiously over the country---New
York's Tombs and Attica; the Pontiac, Illinois State Peni-
tentiary; correctional facilities in Vermont; and the Army
disciplinary barrackes in Fort Gordon. Georgia. Most of
these were particularly violent and, unlike past disturbances,
were predominantly based on what Chaneles describes as "fun-
damental issues," such as questions of inmate civil rights
(1973:4). They were probably not entirely unrelated to the
advancing age and deteriorating physical conditions of most
of these institutions as well.
As is commonly recognized, racial issues are often a
cause of institutional violence. For example. the inmates
of Attica indicated that one source of the tension that
eventuated the 1971 riot there was the generally indifferent
120.
attitudes of white correctional officers toward the black
and Puerto Rican inmates, who constituted eighty per cent of
the rural prison's population. Of the entire staff, there
was only one Hispanic and not a single black (Nagel 1973:
52), As stated before, this is greatly contingent upon the
location of the facility; rural institutions cannot always
provide appropriate personnel.
As Vernon Fox states in his well-known book on prison
violence, causes for institutional uprisings are difficult
to conclusively identify. Certain conditions may be found
in association with rioting, but causes present at all pri-
son riots are not readily recognizable (Fox 1956:306-307).
Herein lies an important concept inherent in this thesis.
The architectural environment can rarely be said to actually
cause behavioral manifestations in its inhabitants. In-
stead, particular design aspects may possibly encourage,
provoke, or facilitate violent behavior in prisons through
an excess of collective privacy, an overcrowded dormitory,
or a poor overall layout. These design features are fre-
quently subtle enough that they are not immediately iden-
tified as promoting prison violence. Since they cannot be
construed as direct causes of inmate disturbances, it would
be foolish to assert that their removal or modification
would absolutely eliminate violence from prison. Still,
violence cculd very feasibly be reduced through such atten-
tion to the physical environments of correctional institu-
tions; after all, improvement, not miracle, should be the
realistic aim of prison designers and reformers.
121.
The 1973 South Carolina Department of Corrections study
found several variables to be positively associated with,
but not necessarily causes of, prison riots. The findings
included the following:
1. Maximum-security prisons have a higher incidence
of riots.
2. The incidence of riots increases with the age of
the prison.
3. The incidence of riots increases with the prison's
planned capacity.
4. Lack of productive and meaningful job assignments
in medium- and minimum-security prisons increases
the incidence of riots.
5. There is a higher incidence of riots in prisons
where the inmates regard the recreational pro-
grams as inadequate (South Carolina Department
of Corrections 1973:32).
All things considered, I think it is safe to say that crow-
ding and high inmate population density do not necessarily i

cause prison riots, but tend to be prevailing conditions
j A '
institutions where violence breaks out. Deficient struc- '/t-V'f1"'J::-;!, 0-
tural design may also facilitate aggressive outbursts,
though more subtly than other factors---such as lack of
staff surveillance.
It is readily apparent that the causation of institu-
tional violence is a very unsure area. Some theorists at-
tribute prison aggression to an overload of environmental
stimuli due to crowding; others feel it is the lack of such
stimUli due to isolation which leads to outbursts (Fogg, p.
24-25). Many of the studies from which theories are derived
are those relying on experimental data involving animals---
as in the case of the crowding and density studies---so
their evidence should be thought of as tentative rather
than conclusive. This is one of the major disadvantages
of the data which I came across in my research.
122.
Although little empirical testing has been done on the
effect of prison architecture on inmate violence, it does
appear that the less oppressive and more open the design,
the less likely it will be for violent behavior to mani-
fest itself. For example, the new men's prison at Leesburg,
New Jersey, which features colorful rooms, landscaped gar-
den courts, and large expanses of glass, has enjoyed "a
surprisingly low level" of violence during the first three
years of its existence (Nagel 1976:110). Nagel strongly
feels that architects can mOdify the violent behavior of
prisoners through intelligent, sensitive facility designs.
Edith Flynn is of the opinion that an institutional
appearance in a prison encourages unnatural behavior among
its residents and therefore fosters inmate violence. The
more "normal" the prison's inward and outward appearance---
lack of obtrusive surveillance or physical barriers, and
other intimidating features---the better chance for "nor-
mal" behavior among inmates (Flynn 1976:124). Being a co-
founder of the now-defunct National Clearinghouse for Cri-
minal Justice Planning and Architecture of the University
of Illinois, Flynn predictably provides a recipe-like list
of suggestions for architectural and environmental modifi-
cations in the prison. The increased normalcy and humani-
zation of the institution is certainly a desirable goal; I
do not disagree with that. Even so, not all prisoners may
123.
benefit from the same type of environment. Flynn seems to
have in mind the halfway-house resident, not the maximum-
security individual. Violence in prison entails not only
environmental provocation, but environmental facilitation.
It is essential that opportunity for aggression not be
overtly provided the prisoner through visual barriers which
impede staff observation, and yet privacy is necessary.
Perhaps the most salient aspect of prison security lies in
the individuals their custody ratings, and their
psychological tendencies. "Problem inmates" will require a
stricter environment, whereas others may be assigned to
surroundings featuring more physical amenities. To properly
assign inmates to correctional institutions, careful tes-
ting must be carried out in order to determine the optimal
environmental configuration for each offender.
Architecture affects corrections in a specific way: in
prison, there are few or no alternatives, and the inmate
cannot modify his or her surroundings to any great extent.
In Nagel's words. the prison setting is "total, absolute,
comprehensive, immutable" (1973:177). Design is of great
significance in prison, because inmates are unable to avoid
any inadequate or dangerous arrangement: overcrowded dor-
mitories, poor lighting, gloomy interiors, or obs9ure
stairwells. Poor design may result in physical attack, in
pathological behavior, or severe depression. This need not
be so. Though the state of corrections is far from perfect,
we certainly have evidence of specific architectural de-
signs producing fewer debilitating effects than others. It
124.
is entirely possible to modify existing correctional faci-
lities to meet higher standards of design, and close down
those which are hopelessly outmoded---stacks of cell blocks
five tiers high, and so forth.
Aggressive incidents have a propensity to occur in
various parts of the correctional institution, depending
on its custody rating and physical plant design. In a
minimum-security prison I visited, trouble in the form of
rapes and knifings would usually take place in the indivi-
dual rooms rather than in the showers or elsewhere. At a
medium-security institution featuring only dormitory hou-
sing, violent assaults would often be located on someone's
bunk, or in the television room at the end of the dormi-
tory. Trouble in one maximum-security prison, I was in-
formed, tended to occur in the Auburn-type cells or, at
times, in the showers. Apparently. institutional violence
is often a matter of opportunity and proximity.
"If there is any fear that preoccupies prison managers
from coast to coast, it is fear of disorder in the
dining room."
So states William Nagel (1973:88), with good reason. On
July 4, 1970, while Nagel was working for the Department of
Corrections in Philadelphia, an extremely violent riot oc-
curred in that city's Holmesburg prison. The riot, which
resulted in the injury of twenty-nine guards and forty-three
inmates, was advanced by the physical design of the insti-
tution. First of all, the building was without air condi-
tioning, and this particular Fourth of July was unbearably
hot. Much more serious, however, the prison's floor plan
125.
was such that the inmates had to walk past the kitchen to
get to the dining area, where the riot took place. The in-
mates were well aware that there was not sufficient control
over the butcher knives, meat cleavers, and other weapons
present in the kitchen, and therefore took advantage of the
opportunity to vent their hostilities on their peers (Nagel
1976:106-107). In light of this incident, it is obvious
that such fears are well-founded. The dining hall brings
together the largest number of inmates in a single place
and tensions may be high among inmates as well as officers.
At one prison I visited, I was shown eating utensils made
of a special type of plastic which crumbles if chipped at or
filed. Therefore, no plastic spoons can be honed into
dangerous weapon blades. Plastic utensils previal at
most prisons, thoughlI toured one jail at which steel
utensils are used. A correctional officer explained that
a very precise count is kept as utensils are handed out
at meals, and the exact number distributed must be promptly
returned at the end of the dining period. Not a single
inmate may depart the cafeteria until the count matches;
if anything is missing, the inmates must sit in their
places until the item is produced, no matter how long
it takes. I would venture to say that, although more ex-
pensive, the plastic method would be safer and simpler to
use.
Dining halls are not necessarily the only place where
group disturbances are a particular threat; I was told
at a maximum-security institution that group trouble there
126.
tended to occur in the yard used for recreation. Since this
prison houses all its inmates in single-occupancy, inside
cells, the yard and the dining hall are really the only two
places inmates congreagate. Thus, these are their only op-
portunities for any sort of action en masse. The population
of this prison was approximately four hundred inmates. To
me, this suggests a strong need for even smaller prisons,
especially if they are maximum-security. The extra oper-
ating costs would be well worth the enhanced safety.
The case of the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary is exem-
plary to this discussion of prison design and inmate vio-
lence; indeed, it is perhaps the most applicable case at this
time in which the physical plant has been found responsible,
at least in part, far inmate threat.
In April of 1979. the Committee on the Judiciary
adopted an amendment calling for the permanent closure
of the U. S. Penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia, by September
1984. The Atlanta Penitentiary, constructed in 1900-1902,
has a capacity of three times the suggested maximum popu-
lation for any corrctional facility. Its physical struc-
ture is too large to make safe or properly manage; many
inmate murders and disturbances have occurred due to its
design. The U. S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth. Kansas,
opened in 1906, is also too old and overcrowded to merit
perpetuation as a prison in its present state. However,
alterations were approved which shall convert Leavenworth
into "a modern correctional institution" with a maximum
capacity of 500 men by September, 1985. This conversion
127.
would eliminate Leavenworth's "penitentiary-like features"
and thus alter its function (House of Representatives 1979:
14) .
The Atlanta Penitentiary, a maximum-security institu-
tion housing 1.300 adult males and the country's largest
,
prison industry. became subject to a year-long investiga-
tion by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
after several sources indicated that the institution was
the setting for "violent inmate murders, extensive narcotics
trafficking, and various other criminal activities" (Perma-
nent Subcommittee on Investigations 1980:1). Reasons given
for this deterioration in the prison's custodial efficacy
include the age, size. and overcrowded conditions of the
institution. Negligence on the part of administrators and
staff was equally significant to the advancement of the
situation, of course, but physical aspects of the plant were
contributory. For example, the cell blocks were designed in
such a way that it was possible for two inmate assailants
to conceal themselves in a cell block stairway and there
attack with a knife and a piece of pipe another inmate who
was scheduled to testify on Penitentiary conditions to
the U. S. marshal in Atlanta (Permanent Subcommittee on In-
vestigations 1980:7).
Besides greatly exceeding the suggested population
limit for prisons, the Atlanta facility consists of cells
whose square footages fall far below the minimum standard
of sixty square feet set by the American Correctioal Associ-
ation. Also, the multi-tiered steel "cage construction" was
128.
cited as contributing to the sensory deprivation of inmates
and staff. Overall, the U. S. Penitentiary at Atlanta is
an example of an outmoded correctional institution, built
at a time when penal philosophy concentrated on the physical
and psychological isolation of offenders from larger society
(Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations 1980:24). The
structure does not conform to present ideology and therefore
cannot accomodate the needs of inmates and staff. Methods
of supervisicm have changed since the turn of the century,
as has the amount of permitted inmate movement. Indeed.
personal interviews with a number of prisoners revealed the
common opinion that only increased isolation of inmates
from one another could feasibly prevent or reduce the ram-
pant criminal activity within the prison.
In 1977 the Atlanta Penitentiary attained its peak
population: 2,}00 men in a prison meant to hold only 1.500.
Most of the inmates there are repeat offenders serving
lengthy sentences. They are housed in six dormitories, five
cell blocks, and a drug abuse unit. Four of the cell blocks
are set up in stacks of five tiers of cells, whereas the
fifth has four cell tiers. The two largest cell blocks,
A and E, were constructed to hold four men per cell, but
each contains six to eight inmates; the two oldest cell
blocks, C and D, were built in 1902 and have only single
cells; and E, the four-tiered cell block is two-fifths
double occupancy. three-fifths single cells. This last
building and the dormitories are considered "honor housing"
and are occupied by inmates with good conduct records.
129.
There is also a two-story building housing both disci-
plinary segregation and administrative detention cases. For
the total capacity of 118, only three "strong" cells are
intended for single occupancy; the rest are three-bed, four-
bed, and a small dormitory (Permanent Subcommittee on Inves-
tigations 1980:25-26). In view of the building's intended
purpose---segregation---multiple occupancy may frequently be
self-defeating, especially if the aim of segregation is the
safety of the inmate through isolation. As the segregation
population averaged around 75% during 1977, it is certain
that there was inmate interaction in the detention and disci-
plinary housing.
Another problem with the physical arrangement of the
Atlanta prison is the placement of the admissions and
orientation unit on the first and second tiers of B cell
block, one of the two largest housing structures at the
facility: its total population ranges from 570 to 760
inmates (Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations 1980:25).
Thus, new prisoners are directly exposed to more experi-
enced, "predator-type" inmates in an institution where in-
mate movement is largely uncontrolled. Of the nine homi-
cides which occurred during the sixteen months between No-
vember, 1976 and April, 1978, five took place in the multi-
tiered cell blocks---buildings in which observation and.
therefore, supervision are difficult. Four of the five
cell block killings occurred in A and B cell blocks, each
of which assigns six to eight per cell designed for four
men. C and D cell blocks, featuring single-occupancy cells,
130.
saw only one killing between them (Department of Justice 1978b:
10)
The main housing area of the Atlanta Penitentiary is
designed on the telephone-pole plan. Seven of the nine
homicides occurred within or just outside this single large
structure. The two other killings happened on the ramp be-
tween the prison industries buildings. No lethal violence
was recorded at either E cell block/Dorm 1 (located in one
building), Dorm 2, or Segregation, all of which are separate
buildings on the prison grounds (Department of Justice 1978b:
illustration 1). This seems significant.
Part of the reason for the concentration of homicides
in cell blocks A and B was the somewhat treacherous inmate
complement there. The small capacity (118 inmates) of the
Segregegation Building was cited as influencing the assign-
ment there of troublesome prisoners. If little space was
available in Segregation for the accomodation of a problem
inmate, he was likely to remain at large in the general pop-
ulation. Usually, this meant he would stay in either A or
B cell block, where "Atlanta's proven disruptive" inmates
are found. Ironically, these individuals have full inter-
action with those newly admitted to the Admissions and Orien-
tation Unit---all newcomers have no choice bill to mingle with
known troublemakers (Department of Justice 1978b:11-14).
Worse, when troublemakers are recognized, they are housed in
mUltiple-occupancy cells despite the common knowledge that
single cells are necessary for effective detention of
dangerous inmates. At Atlanta, however, the single cells are
reserved for well-behaved individuals. Therefore, the inves-
tigative team recommended that single cells be utilised to
house disruptive rather than compliant inmates, and that the
physical arrangement of the prison grounds be modified by
the installation of fences so that all inmate traffic to
and from the industries complex take place along a single
walkway. At the time of the investigation, several avenues
were available between buildings, making observation diffi-
cult; as mentioned above, two killings occurred in this area
(Department of Justice 1978b:14-15).
Another potential source of violence was observed by
the investigative team: the clothing exchange room, where
dirty apparel is handed in for laundering and clean apparel
distributed. The team concluded that the physical construc-
tion of the room contributed to the aggravation and hosti-
lity of the prisoners by forcing them to be crowded together,
shoving and jostling through a single doorway. In fact,
the situation was seen as very likely to incite violence
among the inmates, and rapid modifications were strongly
urged.
The team's final contention was, "the mere size and
structure of the facility creates an impersonal, dehuma-
nizing atmosphere in which staff and inmates both suffer."
Such a large inmate popUlation in ratio to the number of
staff caused problems in supervision, especially at night
when fewer correctional officers were on duty. The team
stressed the absence of any single identifiable factor re-
sponsible for the homicides at Atlanta, attributing them
132.
instead to a combination of factors including the physical
design of the Penitentiary (Department of Justice 1978b:18-
20)
The Atlanta Penitentiary shows what can result from an
overpopulated, oversized, outdated institution being per-
mitted to function without modification of plant or man-
agement. Though the telephone-pole deSign can be very eco-
nomical in terms of utilties and so forth, there is often a
real problem in keeping various inmate classifications apart.
In a 1974 study of violence in prisons, inmates were asked
"What would you do to reduce the number of stabbings, fights,
and beati!Ugs that go on around here?" The most common re-
sponse was "Separate inmates from each other." Obviously,
more potential group and individual interaction is directly
tied to more potentially aggressive confrontations (Ellis,
Grasmick, and Gilman 1974:33), Here again is emphasis on
the importance of single cell as opposed to dormitories, and
smaller housing units as opposed to massive cell blocks.
Also, as inmates of medium- and minimum-securty institutions
typically have higher interaction rates than maximum-security
prisoners, I feel that the first two types of prisons might
well profit from the provision of architectural features
such as partitions of glazed glass in certain well-peopled
areas; the glazing would decrease the inmates' perceived
interaction level while not actually obscuring actions, so
that supervision could be maintained. Small, scattered
dining areas would also keep interaction down to a manage-
able degree. Overall, the campus plan would seem to be the
133.
optimal plant design for reducing aggressive encounters.
I have discussed here various aspects of prison vio-
lence as tied to institutional design. As seen, certain
qualities of the architectural environment seem to contri-
bute to outbursts of aggressive behavior among prisoners.
In the final section, I shall consider some additional
problems and some recommendations for the improvement of
prison design.
PROBLEMS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
134.
"The history of prison architecture stands as a dis-
couraging testament of our sometimes intentional,
sometimes accidental degradation of our fellow man.
Prison structures have continued to be built in a
way which manages by one means or another to bruta-
lize their occupants and to deprive them of their
privacy, dignity, and self-esteem, while at the
same time strengthening their criminality. The 19th
century allowed vast and dreary buildings and phy-
sical cruelty to grind down the prisoner. The con-
emporary prison seems to allow mechanical contri-
vances to dominate the prisoner. Architects in the
future must share some responsibility for the unin-
tended indignities made possible by their works
(Johnston 1973:53) ."
Indeed, it is imperative that prison planners realize that
the total impact of the penal experience is a product of a
number of aspects taken together with the type of housing
and the architectural environment in general. Physical ele-
ments of housing must be regarded in conjunction with pro-
gram, staffing, security, and a great many nonphysical con-
siderations. In short: a correctional institution's accep-
tability, and therefore its impact on the residents, is a
function of the psychological and sociological attitudes in
addition to the physical facilities involved. A prison
design is only as good as the personnel and programs en-
tailed. The full context of the correctional process must
be carefully scrutinized in order to arrive at conclusions
which may improve today's prisons: one must penetrate the
surface of an attractive facade and examine its workings
(Nagel 1973:80). If the goal of imprisonment is to prepare
the criminal for reentry into society, it is obvious that
this can only begin to be achieved by attempting to allevi-
ate the problems that caused the criminality in the first
135.
place. Here, the assumption is that crime is symptomatic
of a maladjustment of some sort; the prison must try to re-
solve the maladjustment. Architecture may be adapted to aid
this problem-solving process, says Gill, by providing the
most normal environment possible without undue emphasis on
any specific programs---educational, vocational, or indus-
trial. This is not to say such programs would be forsaken;
rather, they would be no different from programs available
to average citizens, thus giving prisoners no significant
advantage in these areas (Gill 1972'120-121).
For an improved correctional system, there must be
more attention paid to the individual characteristics and
custodial requirements of the object of this field, the
convicted offender. As the American Correctional Association
has stressed, it is only a distinct minority of inmates who
require confinement in maximum-security prisons; indeed,
even in such closely controlled institutions, supervision
by qualified personnel is a more effective custodial measure
than dependence on mere physical barriers in the construction
of the facility itself (American Correctional Association
1972,33). Nonviolent nonrepetitive offenders, it is known,
are rarely escape risks. They may safely be assigned to
minimum-security camps, which are far less expensive to
build and maintain tham medium- or maximum-security facili-
ties. Overall, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is sending
more people to minimum-security institutions and fewer to
penitentiaries at the present time (Committee on the Judici-
ary 1979,8-9). Also, it must be remembered that security
136.
ratings are not necessarily parallel to treatment ratings.
Some "escape artists" are highly amenable to reform, while
less serious security risks might be virtually untreatable.
Institutional architecture should bear this out. Gill, in
a 1962 article, redefined classification of inmates into
four basic groups. These include new offenders, never be-
fore in prison; tract'able prisoners, who may be defined as
those "want ing and capable of treatment"; intractable, re- /.JtvIJl ",datffz ,
;1 _. nf'j, /; J-" fHi'.,. f;
ferring to those "not wanting treatment"; and defective {//jrv.,..v'iufM" v h,'
c I d)c
tVtUri).;" tS
prisoners, who are either limited or incapable of treatment "(1' r_' ()
'"'-
Program. staff, and architecture should, ideally,
to the needs of these respective inmate types. TractableV'nif0t &",-
prisoners generally do not require as strict restraint
t,',@ 'if
supervision as do their intractable fellows; yet many
rectional facilities continue to jumble different prisoner
types together indiscriminately (Gill 1972:116-118).
With regard to the four categories of prisoner classi-
fication, Gill envisions four types of penal facilities.
For the new offenders, a reception center; for the tracta-
bles, a "normal" institution with treatment facilities; for
the intractables, a very basic custodial prison; and for the
defectives, a combination custodial-hospital-educational
institution. Each of the four facility configurations
would provide for maximum-, medium-, and minimum-security
risks in each inmate category (Gill 1972:119).
Gill cites some existing institutions which conform to
the needs of the tractable prisoner. Their characteristics
include an overall atmosphere of normal living, not "tradi-
137.
tional" prison discipline---architecture, program, and per-
sonnel reflect this. Activities are carried out in small
groups, as a rule, tending to approximate an "institution
family"; and inmates perform tasks und8r the supervision
of and in cooperation with staff members. Security remains
primary but not preoccupying. Finally, the majority of
these facilities are designed on the open campus plan (Gill
1972:126-127) .
Sadly. such prisons are the exception and not the
rule. The majority of extant prisons are unmanageable
and dehumanizing. Many groups and agencies have made efforts
to combat the problems in American correctional institutions
by providing suggestions and guidelines for modification
and construction. I will cite some of these.
In 1967, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement
and Administration of Justice recommended that prisons be
designed for smaller populations and located in or near
the cities from which their inmates come (Nagel 1973: 183).
The Department of Justice and the American Public Health
Association also have called for newly constructed facilities
to have capacities of no more than five hundred inmates, a
figure I consider rather large (Department of Justice 1978a:
14; A. P. H. A. 1976:52). Further guidelines are provided
by the Commission on Accreditation---for example, single cells
inIDng-term institutions must have at least sixty square
feet of floor space, and the acceptable decibel ranges for
prison housing units are 65-70 for daytime, 40-45 at night
(Department of Justice 1978a:l0-ll). The Department of
it I
v'
138.
Justice also specifies standards stating that all cells in
new facilities should be on an outside wall, with no less
than seven feet of space between walls and at least eight
feet of space between floor and ceiling (1978a:14). In a
more specific vein regarding institutional safety, Gill
advocates the location of the prison control center out-
side the prison enclosure, with secondary stations occu-
pying appropriate spots within the prison itself. The con-
trol center would contain all the expected features: tele-
phone switchboard, master locking mechanisms, arsenal, and
emergnecy utilities (Gill 1972:117). If this arrangement
had existed at the New Mexico penitentiary, the riots and
slayings could not have occurred; the prisoner takeover of
the institution was wholly contingent on the penetration and
seizure of the within-walls control center.
Up until quite recently, there was an organization
formed exclusively for the purpose of dictating methods for
the improvement of correctional institutions. This was the
National Clearinghouse for Criminal Justice Planning and
Architecture, begun in 1971 at the University of Illinois,
Urbana. The Clearinghouse was under contract with the Legal
Enforcement Assistance Administration, and its architects
and corrections experts were responsible for keeping up
with new developments in correctional planning and reviewing
applications from states and counties for Federal correc-
tions construction grants. Monies were awarded the projects
which met the Clearinghouse standards of "advanced practices";
projects which did not come up to par were given technical
139.
guidance to rectify their shortcomings. Unfortunately, the
Clearinghouse itself had shortcomings. The organization's
publication. Guidelines for the Planning and Design for
Regional and COJ1ulluni ty Corrections Centers for Adults, was
really a book of ideas and suggestions. It failed to define
"advanced practices," and did not even list the types of
programs and designs that would be considered fundable. As
such. it was regarded as somewhat unsubstantial by many of
those who would ostensibly come under its aegis for funding.
Also, many states found its suggestions too expensive and
unconvincing to the taxpayer to be truly feasible (Black-
more 1978:42-43). I am told that the Clearinghouse has
formally ceased to exist. This is truly a shame, for with
better management and greater specificity in institutional
requirements, this could have been a momentous organization
in the field of correctional architecture. I certainly hope
that the program will somehow be salvaged in the near future;
there is an urgent need for public attention to be drawn to
current prison conditions if any action is to be taken.
A very basic problem, probably unnoticed by most of
those in positions of influence, is the failure to take an
institution's treatment program into consideration during
the physical planning stage. The result is the development
of a program which must be adjusted to conform to the faci-
lity's physical accomodations (Nagel 1973:132). Clearly.
this is a backward way of managing a prison; in a total in-
stitution, physical plant and treatment program are inex-
tricably entwined and must be regarded as such from the
140.
earliest stage of design. There is an urgent need for greater
communication and cooperation between prison administrators
and prison planners or prison renovators if more satisfac-
tory facilities are to be developed. After all, a correc-
tional facility is merely the setting for administering
treatment, which is the absolute basis of the penal philo-
sophy of today (Nagel 1973:135).
K. L. McReynolds, a Canadian research consultant, puts
forth a succinct comment on prison design and construction
tOday:
"Building a correctional facility is a complicated
process characterized all too often by an unsatisfied
customer. Sometimes this dissatisfaction comes about
because the client, usually a senior representative
of a provincial or federal government, does not or
cannot define the requirements of the new facility
in a manner which can be synthesized into physical
form. In other instances, the client may, unknow-
ingly, hold preconceptions which are either obsolete
or unrealistic. Thus it is not until the prison is
built that their inappropriateness becomes apparent"
(McReynolds 1973:26).
Therefore, says McReynolds, it is essential that the persons
who will be working in the new correctional facility be in-
cluded in the design process. Through this type of cooper-
ative planning, various aspects of function, organization,
and population may be taken into consideration and provided
for from the beginning (McReynolds 1973:27). Indeed, to
create better, more effective correctional institutions,
architects must be able to comprehend the functions and
goals involved and to design environments accordingly. Re-
habilitation and reintegration must be employed as constructs
in determining the most supportive, least harmful prison
design.
The following is an interesting note on how architects'
decisions on institutional design are made.
"In developing the statements of requirements which
follow and the space requirements for each activity
and function, .. operations were observed at Institution
X and operational practices and needs were discussed
with operating and staff officials. The very serious
limitation of facilities, staff and equipment at the
present time, coupled with the overwhelming number
of residents in the Adult Services complex, virtually
rules out chances of obtaining any useful information
from staff or residents except for such generalizations
as more, small correctional centers with more programs,
staff, eqiupment and facilities. The more useful in-
formation comes from ideals or goals which the rracti-
tioners express" (Gruzen and Associates 1972:60).
These remarks show that, in this particular case at least, there
had been some communication with prison officials during the
design process but the general staff members' opinions were
not considered relevant and neither were those of the inmates.
Fortunately, perhaps, the prison designed by these architects
was never built; there was actually a decrease in pris.oner
population and the extra structures were unnecessary. This,
however, was an unusual case.
Here is the point at which the experts step back. sur-
vey the situation, and say "What do we do now?" Nagel and
his team in both 1972 and 1976, that prison is
not an effective setting for rehabilitation and does not
protect society as efficiently as it might (Nagel 1973:180;
Nagel 1977:170). I agree. At this point in time, however,
the answer is not to abandon or abolish prisons: it is
simply not feasible. There must be other routes.
As has been presented in this paper, a great many guide-
142.
lines exist in regard to prison design. With all of these
improvement-oriented guidelines, what could be the problem?
The problem is that the guidelines are simply not followed.
They are not perceived by most designers and administrators
as requirements, and the results are more dormitories, more
oversized institutions, and more isolated locations. We
do not need more recommendations: we need regulations, re-
quirements, and laws. Without these, abominations in prison
housing shall persist and corrections will remain as inef-
fective as ever. The amount of money that has been spent
on the construction of correctional institutions in this
country since 1910 is, I am sure, astounding; and all we
have to show for this expense is a vast coTIBction of pri-
sons which cannot fulfill the purpose of rehabilitating the
offender. The majority of recommendations which have been
made for changes in prison design are quite intelligent;
they need legal support if they are to have an impact.
In addition to enforced standards, we need to eradi-
cate the economic yoke around the neck of the correctional
officials. Certainly, money is not a plentiful commodity
at this point in time; and yet, it is self-defeating to
continue to save a few dollars on ineffective designs while
failing to find or implement better ones. The last sec-
tion clearly presented institutional design and size as being
directly associated with the facilitation, promotion, and
provocation of inmate violence. It is, at the least, unfair
to perpetuate prisons which not only do not rehabilitate but
endanger the prisoners who populate them. If new correc-
143.
tional facilities are absolutely essential, then they must
be provided, in the most humane possible configurations. I
prefer, however. to advocate the renovation of those prisons
extant which are still useable, and not outrageously over-
sized or outdated. When inspecting the Federal Bureau of
Prisons' budget proposals for 1980, the chairman of the Sub-
committee on Courts. Civil Liberties, and the Administration
of Justice emphasized the importance of seeking less expen-
sive alternatives to building new prisons (Committee on the
Judiciary 1979:4). This suggests an imminent period of
renovation of inadequate facilities. which is definitely
an improvement over leaving them as they are. For those
facilities such as Leavenworth and Atlanta which appear
irreparable, abandonment and demolition are the wisest ac-
tions.
As Gill points out, twenty per cent of the 25,000 cells
which make up the total cGmplement of the Federal Bureau of
Prisons are maximum security. When added to state facili-
ties maintaining this level of custody. auministrators feel
that these accomodations will continue to suffice for the
intractable offenders without need for new prison construc-
tion (Gill 1972:124). In light of the evidence put forth
herein concerning the dangers and limitations of ancient
prisons, their use should be avoided at all costs. Patholo-
gies, assaults, and murders will be prevented in the long
run, despite the expenditures for the renovation and intel-
ligent construction of other institutions.
Perhaps most important of all in terms of the psy-
144.
chological well-being of the inmate, we desperately need more
normal prison environments: prisons which approximate, to
the greatest possible extent, life in society. This may be
found in the configuration of the community corrections mo-
del. Reformers are quite right in pressing for the contain-
ment of inmates within the environmElJ:nt from which most of
them came. It seems sensible to habilitate prisoners for
reentry in the location where that reentry will eventually
take place. Many theorists feel that this model will lead
to rehabilitation more rapidly than the traditional prison.
NOw, there are problems inherent in this argument: not
every inmate is amenable to a community model. My percep-
tion of a community corrections model is one in which the
correctional institution is located within the community
rather than out in the country, and in which custody is not
the all-encompassing concern of the staff. Certain security
measures will, of course, be taken, but reintegration into
the community should be the goal preoccupying the admini-
stration. Intensive programs of education, useful job
training, and psychological treatment should be included in
this model. The inmates would live in the institution, but
work-release programs for daytime should be implemented as
soon as the individual is judged ready. The aim is to teach
the offender to function successfully and within the law in
the society at large, not to feel dehumanized.
The community prison would be appropriate for most
minimum-security and many medium-security individuals. For
other medium- and maximum-security offenders, a more cus-
r ~
todial prisons such as that discussed by Gill would serve
the purpose of removing the offender from society as neces-
sitated by the nature of his or her crime. Careful consi-
deration of individual inmate personality and history char-
acteristics will be instrumental to the success of this cor-
rectional system. Whatever the custody rating, all insti-
tutions must have individual-occupancy rooms, with no ex-
ceptions. In admissions centers where the new inmates may
be experiencing a particularly low ebb in psyche due to the
anticipation of what will happen in prison, I propose a
private room with some manner of windows on the side walls
providing a certain amount of interaction with the inmates
to either side. In this way, the individual will not feel
as completely alone in the frightening situation and will
therefore be less likely to attempt suicide, which is a
common reaction to admission to jailor prison.
Aside from all concrete design proposals, there is a
strong need for further research in the field of corrections
as to the types of institutional designs which will cease to
promote violence and other pathologies. Prisons can no
longer be ignored by the public; we must expose, inspect,
and improve the conditions which we continue to employ
for the incarceration of certain members of the society.
The more that is understood, the better the possibilities
for the creation of a more humane and effective system of
correct ions.
146.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
American Correctional Association. "Development of Modern
Correctional Concepts and Standards." IN, Correctional
Institutions. Robert M. Carter, Daniel Glaser, and Leslie
T. Wilkins, editors. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co.
1972.
American Public Health Association. Standards for Health
Services in Correctional Institutions. Washington, D. C.:
Jails and Prisons Task Force Program Development Board
of the American Public Health Association. 1976.
Axilbund, Melvin T. "American Prisons and Jails." Current
History 1976, 70, pp. 265-268+.
Barnes, Harry Elmer and Negley K. Teeters.
Criminology, revised edition. New York:
Inc. 1945.
Barnes, Robert D. "Modern Prison Planning."
rary Correction. Paul W. Tappan, editor.
McGraw-Hill, 1951, pp. 269-276.
New Horizons in
Prentice-Hall,
IN, C ontempo-
New York:
Blackmore, John.
tices" Dead?"
"Prison Architecture: Are "Advanced Prac-
Corrections Magazine 1978, 4, 3, pp. 42-53.
Carter, Robert M., Richard A. McGee, and E. Kim Nelson.
rections in America. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott
1975.
Cor-
cO:-
Chaneles, Sol. The Open Prison: Saving Their Lives and Our
Money. New York: The Dial Press. 1973.
Clemmer, Donald.
and Co., Inc.
The Prison Community.
1958,
New York: Rinehart
Cohen, Stanley and Laurie Taylor. Psychological Survival:
The Experience of Long-Term Imprisonment. New York, Pan-
theon Books. 1972.
Collins, Belinda. Windows and People: A Literature Survey.
Psychological Reaction to Environments with and Without
Windows. Washington, O. C.: U. S. Dept. of Commerce!
National Bureau of Standards; U. S. Govt. Printing Office,
1975.
Commission on Accreditation for Corrections. Manual of Stan-
dards for Adult Correctional Institutions. Rockville, Md.:
Commission on Accreditation for Corrections. 1977.
Committee on the Judiciary. Hearings Before the Subcommittee
on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Jus-
tice: Bureau of Prison Fiscal Year 1980 Authorization.
(cont. )
1-;
March 21 and 23, 1979. House of Representatives, 96th
Congress. U. S. Govt. Printing Office. 1979.
D 'Atri, David. "Psychophysical Responses to Crowding." En-
vironment and Behavior 1975, 7, 2, pp. 237-252.
Davis, D. E. "Physiological Effects of Continued Crowding."
IN, Behavior and Environment. A. H. Esser, editor. New
York: Plenum Press, 1971, pp. 133-147.
Department of Justice (U. S.). Federal Standards for Correc-
tions. Draft, June 1978a.
Department of Justice (U. S.). Report of the Investigative
Team into Matters of the Security of the Offender: Atlanta
Penitentiary, April, 1978. Paper presented by the Federal
Bureau of Prisons, April 26, 1978.
Ellis, Desmond, Harold G. Grasmick, and Bernard
lence in Prisons: A Sociological Analysis."
nal of Sociology 1974, 80, 1, pp. 16-43.
Gilman. "Vio-
American Jour-
Esser, A. H. "Cottage 14: Dominance
a Group of InstitutionalJzed Boys."
1973. 4, pp. 131-146.
and Territoriality in
Small Group Behavior
Flynn, Edith Elisabeth. "The Ecology of
IN, Prison Violence. Cohen, Albert K.
Robert G. Bailey, editors. Lexington,
Books. 1976, pp. 115-133.
Prison
George
Mass. :
Violence. "
F. Cole, and
Lexington
Fogg, Louis. "The Relationship
Prison and Violent Behavior."
Mason University.
Between Building Design in
Unpublished MS., George
Fox, Vernon. Violence Behind Bars:
Prison Riots in the united States.
Pre s s. 1956.
An Explosive Report on
New York: Vantage
Giallombardo, Rose.
Prison. New York:
Society of Women: A Study ofa Women's
John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1966.
Gibson, Helen E. "Women's Prisons: Laboratories for Penal
Reform." Wisconsin Law Review 1973, 1. pp. 210-233.
Gill, Howard B. "Correctional Philosophy and Architecture."
IN. Correctional Institutions. Carter, Glaser, and Wilkins,
editors. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. 1972.
Glaser, Daniel. The Effectiveness of a Prison and Parole Sys-
tem. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co. 1974.
Goffman, Erving. Asylums. Chicago: Aldine. 1961.
Goldfarb, Ronald L. and Linda R. Singer. After Conviction.
New York: Simon and Schuster. 1973.
I
Gruzen, Jordan & Partners and Bucher-Myers & Associates,
Master Plan of Lorton Reservation, Occoquan, Virginia:
One. Published by same. 1972.
148.
Inc.
Phase
Hall, Edward T. The Hidden Dimension. Garden City, N. Y.:
Doubleday and Co. 1966.
Hawes, Joseph. Law and Order in American History. Port
Washington, N. Y.: Kennikat Press. 1979.
Haw k ins, G ord 0 n .
University of Chicago Press. 1976.
Chicago:
Hildreth, Arthur M., Leonard R. Derogatis, and Ken McKusker.
"Body Buffer Zone and Violence: A Reassessment and Confir-
mation." The American Journal of Psychiatry 1971, 127, pp.
1641-1645.
Hopkins, Alfred. Prisons and Prison Buildings. Boston:
Rogers and Mason Co. 1918.
House of Representatives. Report Together With Additional
Views: Department of Justice Authorization Act, Fiscal
Year 1980. April 23. 1979. 96th Congress. U. S. Govt.
Printing Office. 1979.
Jaman, D. R., P. Coburn, J. Goddard, and P. Mueller. Char-
acteristics of Violent Prisoners: San Quentin, 1960.
Sacramento: California Department of Corrections, Research
Division; Research Report No. 22, 1966.
Johnston, Norman. The Human Cage: A Brief History of Prison
Architecture. New York: Walker and Co. 1973.
Killinger, George C. and Paul F. Cromwell. Penology: The
Evolution of Corrections in America. St. Paul: west Pub-
lishing Co. 1973.
Kinzel, Augustus F. "Body Buffer Zones in Violent Prisoners."
The American Journal of Psychiatry 1970, 127, pp. 59-64.
Lawton, Mortimer Powell. Planning and MffiRging Housing for the
Elderly. New York: John Wiley and Sons. 1975.
Mattick, Hans W. "The Prosaic Sources of Prison Violence."
Journal of Applied Social Psychology 1975. 5, 2, pp. 179-
187.
MacCormick, Austin H. and Paul W.
book of American Prisons, 1926.
Sons. 1926.
Garrett, editors. Hand-
New York: G. P. Putnam's
McCain, Garvin, Verne Cox, and Paul Paulus. "The Relation-
ship Between Illness Complaints and Degree of Crowding in
a Prison Environment." Environment and Behavior 1976, 8,
2, pp. 283-290.
/
McKelvey. Blake. American Prisons: A History of Good In-
tentions. Montclair. N. J.: Patterson Smith. 1977.
McQuade, Walter. "Calculated Compassion in Prison Design."
Fortune 1965. 72, 5. pp. 185-186. .
McReynolds. K. L. "Designing a Correctional Facility."
Federal Probation 1973. 37. 4. pp. 26-34/
N age 1. Will iam G. .=T.=;h",e'---ON:..::e:.;w.:..-.;R",e"-d",-B;;-:=a",r7'n:'::_7'A;---.:;C;-,rC-'iO-t",:l,,, c",a",l7-'L;;=-o.::.o.:::k--=a:.;:t--,t",h=e
Modern American Prison. New York: Walker and Company.
1973.
"Prison Architecture and Prison Violence."
IN. Prison
Lexington.
Violence. Cohen, Cole. and Bailey, editors.
Mass.: Lexington Books, 1976, pp. 105-113.
strcution. "
172.
"On Behalf of a Moratorium on Prison Con-
Crime and Delinquency 1977. 23, 2. pp. 154-
New York State Reformatory, Elmira. Sixteenth Year Book
Containing the Annual Report of the Board of Managers of
the New York State Reformatory at Elmira. Elmira: New York
State Reformatory Press. 1891.
Newc omer. Robert. "Environmental Influence s on the Older
Person. IN. Aging: Prospects and Issues. Richard H.
Davis, editor. Los Angeles: The Ethel Percy Andrus
Gerontology Center. University of Southern California.
1973. pp. 79-89.
Paulus, Paul. Verne Cox. Garvin McCain. and Jane Chandler.
"Some Effects of Crowding in a Prison Environment." Jour-
nal of Applied Social Psychology 1975, 5. 1. pp. 86-91.
_=-__ Garvin McCain. and Verne Cox. "A Note on the
Use of Prisons as for Investigation of Crow-
ding." Psychonomic Society Bulletin 1973. 1. 6A, pp. 427-
428.
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on
Governmental Affairs. Staff Study of the United States Pen-
itentiary. Atlanta. Georgia. United States Senate. 96th
Congress. U. S. Govt. Printing Office. 1980.
Pevsner, Nikolaus. A History of Building Types. Princeton.
N. J.: Princeton University Press. 1976.
Potter. Joan.
a 'Chilling
26-31.
"The Olympic Pris on': An Obvious Choice or
Idea'?" Corrections Magazine 1978. 4. 2, pp.
Putney. Snell and Gladys J. Putney.
matory." Journal of Criminal Law.
Science. 1962. 53, pp. 437-445.
"Origins of the Refor-
Criminology. and Police
150.
Reid, Sue Titus. Crime and Criminology. Hinsdale, Illinois:
The Dryden Press. 1976.
Rothman, David J.
and Disorder in
and Co. 1971.
The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order
the New Republic. Boston: Little, Brown
Schaefer,
Prison.
section
Marilyn. Munc ears Pleasant, But It's a Lonel
The Bulletin Philadelphia, Wed. Feb. 2 , 1980;
1, page 1, column 4.
Sellin, Thorsten. "Correction in
IN. Correctional Institutions.
kins, editors. Philadelphia:
Historical Perspective."
Carter, Glaser, and Wil-
J. B. Lippincott Co. 1972.
Sommer, Robert. "Studies in Personal Space." Sociometry
1959, 22, 3, pp. 247-260.
Personal S ~ a c e The Behavioral Basis of
Design. Englewood Cliffs, N .. J. : Prentice-Hall. 1969.
"The Social Psychology of the Cell Envi-
ronment." The Prison Journal 1971, 51, 1, pp. 16-21.
Humanize It.
1974.
Tight Spaces: Hard Architecture and How to
Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall.
South Carolina Department of Corrections Collective Violence
Research Project. Collective Violence in Correctional In-
stitutions: A Search for Causes. South Carolina Depart-
ment of Corrections, 1973.
Spencer, Carol. A Typology of Violent Offenders. Sacra-
mento: California Department of Corrections, Research
Division; Research Report No. 23, 1966.
Stokols, Daniel. "On the Distinction Between Density
Crowding: Some Implications for Future Research."
chological Review 1972, 79, 3, pp. 275-277.
and
Psy-
Sykes, Gresham M. The Society of Captives: A Study of a
Maximum-Security Prison. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press. 1958.
Teeters, Negley K. The Cradle of the Penitentiary; The
Walnut Street Jail at Philadelphia, 1773-1835. Phila-
delphia: Pennsylvania Prison Society. 1955.
Thompson, Barbara A.
of Incarceration."
"A Look at Women in Prison: The Pain
Oberlin College: unpublished, 1979.
United Nations Social Defense Research Institute. Prison
Architecture: An International Survey of Representative
Closed Institutions and Analysis of Current Trends in
(cont. )
Prison Design. London: The Architectural Press Ltd.
1975.
151.
United states Bureau of Prisons. Handbook of Correctional
Institution Design and Construction. Washington, D. C.:
1949.