Prisons / Detention Centers

Crime and especially its fast growth has its negative effect on ever larger groups of our society. This has resulted in a growing need for more cell space to execute lock-up punishment verdicts. At the same time the awareness has grown that better general, social and educational conditions in detention centers create more successful re-entry possibilities into society and less chance for recidivism.

Both have been of great influence on the necessity to renovate and expand prison and detention institutions to cope with adapted rehabilitation and treatment programs during the last decade. Also the influence of international organization like the CPT must be acknowledged.

The design of prisons and detention centers follows the variety of uses; with many necessary regimes for different types of prisoners, whom legally cannot and should not be mixed. It is a specific dilemma of the prison where there are two different types of users, one who would love to run it, to escape and the other who has to try to avoid this. Two fields of tension to be housed under one roof. The budget constraints of governments whether operating them directly or thru private corporations, also influences the design to a considerable extend.

Many are the model layouts and socializations regimes with which there have been experiments, up until now
in most cases however leading back to a few basic concepts which date back to the beginning of the 20th century.

All these aspects require a considerable different design approach for our prisons and detention centers.
A combined effort as such is needed of prison managers, government regulators, legal experts, architects,
engineers and contractors,