The following sub section will focus on how the architectural built form affects prisoners. This section will analyze the architectural elements within the prison’s built form such as the building design, materials, colours, space and meaning of spaces within the prisons built form. The design of a correctional facility determines its adequacy in function and convenience. There is a close connection between the architecture of the correctional institution and inmate. This is determined by the correctional facilities ability to carry out the fundamental responsibility of inmate rehabilitation. The investigation will be conducted to understand the theory of Pearson and Richards which states, “The relationship between the built form and human agency is mediated by meaning. People actively give their physical environments meanings, and then act upon those meanings” (Pearson & Richards 1994: p. 5).
The prisoner’s interaction with the built form is a constant one. They are contained in spaces and rooms constantly. The architectural setting determines the assumed character of the place within the people that inhabit it. If the design of the correctional institution is repressive and forbidding, the inmates become less responsive to reformative policies with thorough understanding (Koller 1954: p. 2). Gennaro explains further about the feel of prison, “Prison is an un-natural institution removed from the social context. It is where two societies face each other more or less openly, that of the prisoner and that which imprisons him” (Gennaro 1975: p. 7). The current design of prisons is one that excludes the community interaction for security. The mental atmosphere in which the rehabilitative programmes are run depends for both the inmates and administrators on the physical plant of the institution, its location, structure and the facilities provided (Koller 1954: p. 2). One of the major shortcomings within the rehabilitative programmes of the correctional facilities is the lag behind in correctional architecture, and its inability to keep up with the correctional facilities philosophies and practices (Koller 1954: p. 3). This design resolution is determined by the violent nature of prisons and the need to have constant supervision and physical restriction. The prison architecture can be described as the predominance of physical over psychological custody. The prisons planning is a complex system of enclosures which start from the perimeter fence and proceeds through internal subdivision to the cellular monad design Fig. 7 & 8. Prisons have been designed so the prisoner is in a vulnerable position from the prison guards, their
38 movements restricted and their individualism and privacy is stripped away allowing the guards to constantly supervise the prisoner. The high walls a clear division between liberty and freedom.
A centralised system of surveillance and control determines crammed of living quarters into minimal space based on the demands of surveillance, rather than the requirements of an integrated social life Fig. 9. The emphasis on the design is the minimisation of the area dedicated to activities beyond the basic necessities of life.
The conception of prison as the institution which is a self- contained environment totally closed to its surrounding even visually (Gennaro 1975: p. 9).
Figure 7: Showing the high perimeter wall of the California prison, with guard posts to contain prisoners from escaping (Source: Gennaro1975: p. 55).
Figure 8: Showing in Sacramento the cells behind the guards and the prisoners at the bottom under supervision reading and socializing (Source: Gennaro 1975: p. 24).
39 The prison built form creates a place that is an in- penetrable enclosure. The prison environment is artificial, cohabited by inmates and dictates the prisoner’s life. This environment presents a scenario where a prisoner has to survive over another prisoner for an extended time. The ability for the prisoner to survive these circumstances they face correlates negatively on the success in relating to the outside world. The prison built form is designed to control the inmates through the use of high walls, barbed wire and electric fences used in prison creates distance between the prisoner and society. The layer upon layer of security barriers and devices perpetuates the separation between the prisoner and the community Fig. 10. The bare materials are erected to deter the prisoner from escaping but also create an adverse psychological effect on the prisoner as a reminder that they are in captivity.
Figure 9: Showing the Panopticon central observation point and the prison cells in a radial form surrounding the point (Source: Gennaro 1975: p. 59).
Figure 10: Showing a prison in America the razor wire on top of the walls and along the steel framed windows (Source; Gennaro 1975: p. 57).
40 The materials used in prisons such as steel bar gratings are cold and bare resonate animalist instincts, the feeling of containment and capture, bare concrete floors, harsh reverberating surfaces and multiple occupancy accommodation leaves no sense of ownership and definition of spaces where prisoners are confined in Fig. 11(Gennaro 1975: p. 55).
The steel gates are installed to maintain constant supervision of what the prisoner is doing even within their prison cells. This allows the prison guard to maintain constant authority over the actions of the prisoner is in order to deter criminal behavior. The colors inside prison are dull and are at their minimal raw state of material, there is very little or no lighting within the cells Fig. 12 (Gennaro 1975: p. 56). The toilet facilities are within the living and space open for people to see creating an unsavory environment.
Figure 11: Showing the bare steel gates of Californian prison cell looking outward (Source;
Gennaro 1975: p. 57).
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