Research Paper Outline
Subject
The subject of my paper will be prison architecture (correctional facilities, and detention centers) in America. I will explore the issues that exist within it and where those issues stem from.
Through research I will investigate how architecture can be used as a tool to improve the effectiveness of the rehabilitation of inmates, rather than something that creates and promotes the punishment of the individual, while still allowing correctional officers to maintain some sense of order and control.
Section 1:
Analysis of relationship between space and physical/mental well-being of an individual
- General comments for the section
- Social behavioral psychology teaches us that people’s actions, behavior, ways of thinking, etc. are heavily influenced and shaped by the environments that they are in
- Prisons are often built like fortresses, allowing minimal sunlight–which is considered a luxury due to budget constraints
- Kalief Browder story (Rikers Island)
- Background
- arrested and charged of robbery after allegedly stealing someone’s backpack
- sent to Rikers after family couldn’t pay bail, and was imprisoned without trial or conviction for three years and refused plea deal, maintaining his innocence
- Throughout time in prison he was involved in many physical altercations with other inmates and guards, and attempted suicide on several occasions
- For two out of three years, he was held in solitary confinement
- June 2015, two years after trial is dismissed, Browder commits suicide by hanging himself at his home in NY
- San Quentin State Prison
- Background
- Las Colinas Women’s Detention and Reentry Facility
- Prison in Bastoy, Norway
Section 2:
Why are people sent to prison, what is the intended outcome, how can a situation be created that benefits the prisoner and society?
- People are sent to prison because they owe a debt to society to serve time for the wrong that they have done
- There is no reason that that time spent shouldn’t include the process of rehabilitation
- The better more rehabilitated a person is during time in prison the less likely they are to go back
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rikers_Island
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/is-there-such-a-thing-as-good-prison-design
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/arts/design/prison-architecture-and-the-question-of-ethics.html
Gene 