Much like the pendulum swings in corrections from rehabilitation to punishment, so do the trends in design of prisons and jails.

In the very best designs, the look and feel of a facility is entwined with both a rehabilitative mission and the needs of the community, say justice architects and corrections practitioners. But, in recent years corrections agencies have been faced with tight economic times, which some say has been reflected in a dearth of innovative building projects.

"I have seen higher points in quality of design and emphasis on innovation than we have right now. The reason is the economy; that's a big factor. But also it starts with the overall leadership and philosophy and attitude that people in criminal justice have. That comes from a variety of sources over time," said Ronald Budzinski, Chair of the American Institute of Architects Committee on Architecture for Justice.

Budzinski said the corrections and criminal justice field takes much of its lead from the major forces in industry such as the National Institute of Corrections, the American Correctional Association and American Jail Association.

Back in the 70s and 80s, Budzinski said, when direct supervision was the hot topic and many agencies were moving in that direction, facility design made a positive and innovative shift. Now, however, it is stagnant, save a few stand-outs.

Each year those stand-outs receive accolades from the AIA in its Justice Architecture Review. But this year, none of the five special citation recipients were corrections facilities.

According to Peter Perroncello, Jail Superintendent for the Bristol County, Mass., Sheriff's Office and a review jury member this year, there was a stark difference in this year's review between multi-million dollar federal projects and lower cost correctional ones. There were more than 40 entries for the 2004 review.

"What we saw was traditional cookie-cutter replication and design. I think [in some cases] they were looking at an enhancement of cost savings," he said.

In one instance, the Bureau of Prisons had to spend so much money to prepare a difficult site for construction that, Perroncello speculates, they had fewer funds available to put towards an innovative design.

But some corrections facilities, even though they did not receive a special citation, were noticed for incorporating a new vision into design. The new jail in Tazewell County, Ill. was one of them.

Changing Course Through Design

According to Earl Helm, Jail Superintendent for the Tazewell County Sheriff's Office, the new jail, which was completed last year, represented a major improvement and shift in operations.

"We had original ideas of going to the direct supervision management style and when we did make that conscious decision we started doing a lot of homework and visited other jails. We took what we liked and flushed what we didn't. In that respect it's kind of a hybrid jail," said Helm.

Helm said one of the key components to making the design process run smoothly was the inclusion of different stakeholders from within and outside the department.

One result from this teamwork approach was a new design for the sallyport intake area. Helm said police officers had complained about having to stay with arrestees for lengthy periods until corrections officers were ready to book them. In the new design, the jail accommodates these arrestees in transfer cells, which expedites the procedure.

In addition, the jail staff paid close attention to which members of the offender population needed the most medical services. And, as a result, the team decided to locate the medical and health services unit between the female unit and high-risk offender unit.

Another feature to the jail was the inclusion of new technology, such as video visitation booths. And, by observing these booths in other jails, Tazewell corrections officials were able to enhance privacy for the users.

Helm explained that in some other booths, the video monitors are turned so that other offenders in the pods could see the remote visit participants.

One of Helm's favorite components to the new jails is the co-location of intake, booking, kitchen, laundry, medical and special housing on the first level.

"You don't have to go down in an elevator or stairs, all you have to do is go through some doors," said Helm, who spent 22 years working on the old facility, which spread out those services over three different floors.

Helm said the new jail is a good example of how teamwork and forethought can produce a useful and practical facility - and improve operations at the same time.

A similar philosophy drove the creation of the Orange County, Fla., Corrections Department's current operational structure with the construction of new facilities starting in 1988.

According to Tom Allison, former Chief of Corrections for Orange County, the creation of a new philosophy - that centered around direct supervision - began with a 200-bed, $3 million unit called the Genesis Project.

This unit, which houses the drug treatment, mental health, religious programs and educational programs, was the first of several new facilities built by the county.

"We did the design in such a way that everything was there with the inmate and once you cut movement you get great economies," said Allison, who is now a corrections consultant.

Allison said that the county also built a school-jail that included educational and vocational programs and housing units and an 800-bed unit with intensive reading and writing programs to prepare them for entry into the school-jail.

"The design is right if the vision and the mission and values are right. [And] we cut our operational costs enormously," said Allison.

Budzinski agrees.

"We need to step back and look at what we are doing to make sure we are not building big boxes and warehousing people," he said.

Although he acknowledges that budget can play a role in the level of innovation present in justice design, he believes there is more to success than the dollar.

"It was so successful because it had the leadership of operations that wanted to definitely make a change and make a difference in the inmate population. What was decided was this facility would be the facility that changed the course of what was being done and [there was the recognition that] all the inmates were not the same. There was a percentage of the population that needed to be treated in a very secure way but there was also a part of the population that wanted the opportunity to change," Budzinski said.

Allison said that this is what more agencies need to do when creating new correctional facilities.

"The pendulum [in recent years] has gone to very conservative, very staff intensive and expensive-to-operate [facilities]. The problem is we don't take a big picture look at this and ask what kind of product are we putting back in the communities," he said.

But there are pockets throughout the country where new construction and design is done with these principles in mind, including Winnebago County, Illinois.

Making Space in Winnebago County

In Winnebago County, Ill., where a facility built to hold 176 inmates is now bursting with a population of around 700, a new jail is slated for completion in late 2006 or early 2007.

After a widespread awareness campaign in the community - ranging from flyers, to tours of the existing jail to live TV show appearances with opportunities for call-ins - the county was able to convince the community of the need to replace its existing 30 year-old jail with a new facility that has the capacity for 1,200 inmates.

"We had really done our homework," said Dina Getty, Director of Corrections for the Winnebago County Sheriff's Police.  "We had gotten our facts together [to present to the community]."

With community support and a one percent county sales tax increase to fund the project, construction is scheduled to begin in this November.  According to Getty, one of the agency's major concerns in designing this new facility was programming space.

"We talked with the community programming interests and [discussed] what they wanted to see happen in our jail," Getty said.  "That [helped us] to decide how much programming space [we were going to allot]."

Some of the key community players that the county brought into the discussion were the mental health providers.  Together, they discussed current mental health issues and made decisions about how many beds there should be for both male and female offenders with mental health issues.

But more than just community programming people were included in the planning process for the new jail facility, which will also include four new courtrooms and a sheriff's department.  End users have been consulted throughout the process, as well.

"The important part of a project this large is to make sure it's a team effort with all the different users," said Getty, noting that judges were included in the planning process for the courtrooms and corrections staff were part of decisions made about the jail.  "If staff or others have buy-in, they are going to support it."

To ensure that all employees are kept up-to-speed on the different phases of the construction project, a transition team, which is comprised seven people, puts out a monthly newsletter about the latest developments in the planning, design and construction processes for the new facility.

The transition team is also responsible for a host of other tasks, like working with all of the end users to design space that meets their needs, choosing equipment, rewriting policies and procedures and hiring and training personnel, Getty said. 

Training is an important aspect of the transition team's job because the new facility will be a direct supervision jail, whereas the old building is designed for linear supervision, she added.

Staff was another important constituent to the design process. The new building will reflect an understanding of their needs as well.

The new facility is equipped with a dining room that is tucked away from the noisiness of the cells and has a whole wall comprised of windows, so employees can see the outside.  According to Getty, that is a nice change for the staff, who essentially have no dining area in the present building.

One of the most innovative aspects of the new jail will be its ability to support cutting edge technologies, Getty said.

"We're going to be able to take advantage of [technology] - from computer hardware and software to duress signals to cameras to systems that talk back and forth between squad cars and the jails and the courts," Getty said. 

This connection made with the community -- from the beginning of design to end usage through technology - is important as agencies realize the connection between the services inside the walls and outcomes on the outside.

And, this should be a part of any innovative design of a correctional facility and part of the operational philosophy.

"There's a close relation between operation and design. When design responds to a particular operational philosophy and a staffing requirement and a programmatic philosophy, then you'll have a good design. There really has to be maintained that close relationship between operation and design, if not, is spells disaster," Budzinski said.

Resources:

To contact  Ronald Budzinski call 309.282.8111 or email
budzinski.r@psa-ae.com

To contact Dina Getty, Director of Corrections for the Winnebago County Sheriff's Police, call (815) 987-5476