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INTRODUCITON
Whether it’s a damp and dark dungeon in the 15th century or an electronically surveyed and controlled cell in the 21st century, prison architecture reflects a society’s view on how those who disregard its values and disobey its laws should be treated. Prison architecture reveals much about the morals and standards that each society sets when it comes to dealing with its offenders. As societies evolve, so does their prison architecture. Different theories on punishment aimed to achieve certain goals and therefore called for new prison layouts and systems. Today the world prison population exceeds nine million people. American prisons house almost a quarter of this population, putting the United States on top of the list of countries with highest incarceration rate.
In this paper, I highlight the historical path that prison system and prison architecture have taken in the United States from the 18th century American Revolution until early 20th century. I then briefly review the theoretical foundation for the current prison systems with focus on Foucault’s writing. Next, I describe the current condition of death row inmates in American prisons and explain their unique predicament. Later, I review the stance of many professional associations regarding their involvement in the US prison system and in the end, I compare that to the stance of architects in this system, the morality of such stance and the efforts to change the status quo.
HISTORY OF US PRISON SYSTEM
Since the American Revolution in the 18th century, political developments, scientific advancements and the reform movements have determined the shape and purpose of prison system in the United States. Nonetheless, the role of imprisonment as the principle method to punish offenders has stayed untouched.
The American Revolution was followed by a massive population growth and social mobility which shaped post-colonial American life. Movement toward urban areas and emerging cities redefined communities’ structure. As crime rate increased, communities started to rethink the definition of their town as the collection of all its dwellers and the idea of a separate offender class emerged. In this newly formed environment, the effectiveness of traditional community-based punishments was fading and creation of a new penal system seemed inevitable.
As states began to modernize their penal code, incarceration, often accompanied with physical labor, became the main penalty for almost all offenses in all states, with the exception of three. Following these legal changes, new state prisons were constructed. The early American prisons were similar in design to the workhouses, developed in the 16th century in England to “cure” the idleness of the poor. The rationale behind creating such houses in England was that the residents would rehabilitate through hard labor and become productive citizens. In the post revolution era, incarceration deemed more humane than the previous punishments such as hanging and whipping.
A heightened interest both from the public and the government in prison architecture and improvement of inmates’ and prison staff’s condition emerged in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. During this time, crosses, circles, and semicircles were established as the standard form for prison architecture. In early 19th century, reformers tried to find the root of crime in offenders’ past and the society in general. Lack of proper child discipline and massive increase in the population were blamed for the crimes and corruption of the society. Hence, corruption-free penitentiaries were proposed to keep deviants from their toxic families and communities.
Meanwhile in England, Jeremy Bentham was devising his revolutionary scheme for an “all-seeing” Panopticon prison. Bentham, not an architect but rather a prominent philosopher and criminal law reformer who was at the height of a distinguished career, proposed a prison with centralized configuration around a guard tower from which a supervisor could maintain constant surveillance of all prisoners while himself being shielded by a beam of directional light. Despite his relentless efforts, Bentham’s proposal was never realized in England. Nonetheless, his idea of Panopticon has inspired considerable theory as well as physical solutions for prison architecture with centralized planning. The “unseen surveillance” quality of his proposal was later deemed as an essential tool in prison administration.
Figure 1: Jeremy Bentham’s Proposal for Panopticon Prison Layout. Source: Wikipedia.
Original Image source: "A General Idea of a Penitentiary Panopticon" (1787)
New York and Pennsylvania introduced two new prison systems that were adopted by several other states later on. By 1820’s two competing prison systems, the Auburn system and the Pennsylvania system, evolved from these practices. Both of these were solitary confinement systems with one exception. In Auburn, offenders worked in congregate workshops during the day and slept alone. In Pennsylvania however, inmates were almost always kept separate.
Since 1790, Pennsylvania was using solitary confinement in Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Jail for those sentenced to hard labor. The rationale behind this system was penitence through solitude. It was hoped that on top of punishment, solitude would provide the offenders with time they needed for reflection and contrition. Another argument in favor of this system was reduction in instances of physical violence among prisoners and with prison staff, and fewer health issues. The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia was the perfect archetype of the Pennsylvania prison system. The design recalled the Panopticon in its centralized configuration.
Figure 2: The Eastern State Penitentiary. Source: easternstate.org
Meanwhile New York started using separate living cells at Newgate Prison in New York City in 1796 and later in Auburn Prison. The Auburn System emphasized the imprisonment itself as punishment. This system, which was adopted by all states except Pennsylvania, has been described as “machine-like” with the goal of keeping prisoners under “complete, demeaning control at all times”. By that time, the Auburn prison system was the closest realization of Bentham’s Panopticon, even though the design inspiration for the Eastern State seemed to have come from Bentham’s writings as well.
Figure 3: Convicts at the Auburn Prison. Source: cayugamuseum.org
The debate on which system has more benefits continued throughout the first half of 19th century until the Auburn system prevailed, mainly due to its smaller financial burden on the state. Auburn prison system was perceived as a successful model and spread vastly throughout the country during the 19th century. Soon after, 13 states and the District of Columbia had established and constructed Auburn model prisons. This shift toward penitentiaries, in the American South in particular, resulted in a substantial change in criminal punishment’s geography and moved it into centralized institutions and away from the public view and scrutiny. Thus, disconnecting the community involvement in the penal process which created some resistance to prison construction from the public in the antebellum United States. However, lawmakers, many of which from the elite classes, saw this prison system as a ‘class control’ mechanism as well and ultimately pursued with the construction plans.
Following the American Civil War of 1861-1865, reformists called for revisiting the country’s prison system and rationale. The new wave called for more attention to the offenders’ rehabilitation and focus on “scientific” views of criminality. During this era, fear of genetic contamination by the “criminal class” led to efforts to curb promiscuity and prostitution. Feminists and other activists also pushed for criminalization of domestic violence and more protection for women and children against abuse. Demands that were ignored by the legislators at first, but eventually addressed.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, penal treatment began to change. Efforts to isolate each prisoner had proved too costly and inconvenient. Industrial production and vocational training became important and were expected to result in character reformation. The practice of using convict labor, also called convict leasing, found its way to the Southern states after the Civil War. This lucrative practice turned prisons into manufacturing prisons. Given the racial disparity within the prison population in the South, some saw this practice as the last remaining sign of the slavery. However, by the end of 19th century, convict labor system lost its economic allure and prisons started abandoning the practice.
While nineteenth and early twentieth century incarceration placed increasing emphasis on rehabilitation, penologists and the public became dissatisfied with its strategies and results. There was a return to the traditional aims of imprisonment in the United States. Increasingly unruly inmate populations have led to distinctive architectural plans calculated to allow greater control over the inmates.
MICHEL FOUCAULT AND THE MODERN PRISON
Advancements in surveillance technologies in the 20th century allowed for heightened control of the prisoners which exceeded the boundaries of their physical presence. In 1975 French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote about the hidden layers of power and control in prison architecture and the changing nature of power relations in imprisonment from physical incarceration of body to keeping person’s soul and mind in captivity as epitomized in his prime example, Bentham’s Panopticon. He traces the rapid shift of punishment strategies from corporal and capital punishments and detention of minor offenders, such as vagrants, to the application of imprisonment for almost all law-breakers.
The public execution of Robert Damiens in 1757 after his attempt to kill Louis XV symbolized the former strategy, according to Foucault:
“A whole problematic then develops: that of an architecture that is no longer built simply to be seen (as with the ostentation of palaces), or to observe the external space (cf. the geometry of fortresses), but to permit an internal, articulated and detailed control – to render visible those who are inside it; in more general terms, an architecture that would operate to transform individuals: to act on those it shelters, to provide a hold on their conduct, to carry the effects of power right to them, to make it possible to know them, to alter them.”
Foucault points out the irony of visibility and transparency in Panopticon and states that this “visibility is a trap” and that because the prisoners are “seen but cannot see” their supervisor, there is a guarantee of order. Because the power is visible yet unverifiable, the Panopticon automatizes and dis-individualizes power to the effect of inducing in a prisoner a state of consciousness and continuous visibility that Foucault states as the major effect of Bentham’s legacy.
Foucault views Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon as the epitome of the state’s controlling power. Bentham’s plan must be seen as an unsuccessful mutation, one of many schemes of the time (the 1780s) for exercising state power over the bodies of the prisoners. Moral instruction and education were also to be carried out. Only a handful of these circular prisons were built. Instead, radial plans predominated into the early twentieth century. Later, other plan types evolved and it was not until the late twentieth century that renewed efforts were made to observe some inmates directly, now again confined to their cells and controlled by means of electronic surveillance and restraint devices. Prior to the introduction of CCTV cameras to prisons in the 1980’s it was rare for the prison plan to facilitate direct observation of inmates in their cells.
American prison design shows the effect of the Panopticon while Foucault goes so far as to argue that the Panopticon can be viewed as a “generalizable model of functioning” and a “way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men.” Foucault describes the Panopticon as a power mechanism in its ideal form, making it applicable to any program where a number of people require supervision. Foucault believes that the ideas behind the Panopticon, so called “Panopticism,” have so pervaded the everyday thinking and functioning of society that it has bred a “disciplinary society,” a “society of surveillance.” In prisons in the present day, however, more attention is placed on the relationship and interaction between staff and inmates and the idea of surveillance has switched from a Panopticon-like idea of absolute visibility to a focus on awareness of happenings and direct supervision, which has led to changes in the design of the facilities.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN AMERICA
Since 1863 when Venezuela abolished capital punishment, 137 countries have joined the movement by abolishing this punishment entirely or abandoning its practice. Of the remaining 58 countries, 16 are in Africa, 14 in Americas, 27 in Asia and 1 in Europe. Most developed countries have already moved away from this draconian punishment citing its barbaric nature, irreversibility, insufficient deterrent effect and discriminatory application toward minorities and the poor. The United States is the only Western country which still applies the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
In 1976 the United States Supreme Court struck down its previous 1972 ruling and reinstated death penalty as a form of punishment. Since then, 1489 defendants have been executed and 2738 are still on death row. There has been a highly contentious debate about morality, effectiveness and justification of such punishment in the US in the past several decades. As Bedau lays out in ‘Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies’, proponents of its practice find it the ultimate deterrent that is escape-proof and is fitting to some heinous crimes. Its opponents however, cite its barbaric, inhuman and uncivilized nature, insufficient deterrent effect, encouragement of violence culture, its biased and discriminatory application toward the poor and minorities and its irreversibility as the reasons for their abolishment calls. While the method of execution varies from state to state (lethal injection, electrocution, gas, hanging, firing squad), one thing is certain: Death row inmates in the United States have to spend years in prison waiting for their scheduled execution.
Figure 4: Capital Punishment in the World. Source: Author, based on image by The Economist.
LEGAL PROCEDURES
The legal procedure in capital punishment cases is a complex and lengthy one. In order to reduce the possibility of wrongful conviction and execution of defendants, a 9-step appeal system is currently in place. All death penalty cases go through automatic appeal which cannot be waived by the defendant. Once the conviction is confirmed by the US Supreme Court, the defendant can exhaust further means of appeal at their disposal. The 9 steps described above are shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5: Capital Punishment Legal Procedure in the US. Source: Author
Going through all these steps requires a significant amount of time which has been steadily increasing since 1985. As Figure 6 shows, the average time between sentencing and execution of death row inmates has increased from less than 6 years in 1985 to 16.5 years in 2011. This number has exponentially increased in the past few years such that death row inmates scheduled to be executed in 2018 and 2019 will have spent 27 and 23 years in prison by their execution date.
Figure 6: A Death Before Dying – Average Time Between Sentencing and Execution (Months).
Source: Author based on data from Bureau of Justice Statistics.
But the additional suffering for the death row inmates does not end here. Most states that still have capital punishment also have automatic solitary confinement for death row inmates. 20 of the 31 states with death penalty law automatically put prisoners condemned to execution in solitary confinement regardless of other determining factors such as offender’s mental and physical health, their behavior or their safety. In most cases, this results in decades of isolation from other humans for the inmate, from the day they are admitted to the prison until their execution or death due to natural causes in prison. The reason provided for automatic solitary confinement for death row inmates is usually the safety and protection of both death row inmates and other prisoners from each other. Figure 7 maps where each state stands on death row imprisonment conditions.
Figure 7: Condemned To Death … And Solitary Confinement – Automatic Solitary Confinement for Death Row. Source: Author based on data from The Marshall Project
The majority of prisoners who are kept in solitary confinement go through the same conditions; They are placed in individual cells smaller than a parking spot with little or no natural light for 20-24 hours each day. Their human contact is limited to the interactions they have with prison staff. They receive their food and physical and mental health visits through a slot in the cell door. Visitation is extremely constrained and they are deprived of physical contact with their visitors. Keeping other humans in such horrendous living conditions is categorically unethical and immoral and that is why the “European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment” has found solitary confinement conditions to be “inhuman and degrading treatment” and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has urged its use to be stopped on juveniles or the mentally ill, and for longer than fifteen days in any circumstances, due to its permanent psychological damage if exceeds this threshold.
Based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN in 1948, “Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment” is as a basic human right and every individual is entitled to it. Meanwhile in the United States, on any given day more than 80,000 inmates are held in isolation. For the death row inmates in states with automatic solitary confinement rules, the case is severely worse as some of them have to stay in solitary confinement for decades, in some cases upward of 40 years, until their scheduled execution date.
ARCHITCETS AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY
According to Pew Research Center, the incarceration rate in the US has more than quadrupled since 1980. Thanks to the Rockefeller drug laws in 1970’s, three-strikes law in the 1990’s and ‘tough-on-crime’ mindset during Clinton era the US now has the highest incarceration rate in the world. The United States jails more people per capita than France, Germany, England, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Japan combined.
Figure 8: Time Magazine Cover, February 7, 1994. Source: Time
Such a drastic increase in prison population required exponential prison construction. Between 1990 and 2005, 544 new federal or state correctional facilities were constructed; That is a new prison every ten days. Architects’ role in the current state cannot be overlooked. While construction in other fields seem to be periodical and unsteady, prison industry has been booming and a lucrative alternative for architectural firms in the past couple of decades. The $60.1B prison economy is filled with business opportunities and too tempting to be ignored.
Debate about morality of architects’ involvement in prison design has recently come into prominence again. Architects have started raising concerns about their complicity in torturing and inflicting unnecessary pain on inmates. As the professionals who design these facilities, some of which intended for execution and torture, do architects share part of the blame? If so, what are the steps they need to take to resolve this issue? As William Westfall in his 1993 article “Architecture as Ethics” builds the case, contingent circumstances, such as being confined, in no ways affect that our common realm of existence is human nature and our basic rights and needs are immutable. He looks toward ethics, as Leo Strauss calls it “the legitimate queen of social sciences” and tries to build a philosophical foundation for architecture and architectural dialogue. In the case of prison design, there is a subtle path from accepting a morally questionable commission to becoming an accessory to human rights violation. Architects seem to be either unaware or apathetic about their impact, even though it may seem insignificant at first. Looking back at the history, one can find an analogous case where architects enabled one of the most heinous crimes in the modern history. The concentration camps at Auschwitz were constructed under the direct supervision and design of two architects: Karl Bischoff and Fritz Ertl. Is that the legacy that architects aspire?
Figure 9: Lothar Hartjenstein, Auschwitz I and SS estates (November 1942, “ideal” plan). Source: ushmm.org, Original Image Source: Auschwitz- Birkenau State Museum
A growing number of industries have taken a formal position against their members using their professional skills, training, or products to assist, or enable executions or torture. Citing their professional oaths to preserve, protect and respect human life, heal and care, alleviate suffering, promote health, treat humans with dignity and do no harm, these associations prohibit or strongly discourage their members from taking part in capital punishment, solitary confinement or any other prison practice that violate their oaths.
Is the idea of architects designing death camps or torture rooms not similar to doctors being used as executioners? And American Medication Association prohibits its members from that practice. Similar to medicine and law, architecture is a learned profession and because of that, it requires a license to practice, creating a monopoly for practice. Until now, this monopoly has been given to architects in exchange for a minimal promise that buildings are safe for the public and they won’t fall down. But what if a building’s damage to the public is not due to hasty design, poor choice of materials, insufficient structural strength or lack of foresight, but by the building functioning exactly as expected? Aren’t some architects essentially enabling human rights violation through designing execution chambers and solitary confinements in prisons?
MOVING FORWARD
According to AIA’s code of ethics and professional conduct, “Members should uphold human rights in all their professional endeavors.” But this is an overly broad ethical standard that could be construed in various ways depending on the person who is reading and interpreting it. Alternatively, AIA could use the experience of all other professional associations mentioned above and adopt a language in its Code of Ethics and take a stronger and more explicit stance on the role of architects in design of facilities meant for execution or torture. An advocacy group called “Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility” (ADPSR) has been pushing AIA to do this exact task since 2013. Thus far the AIA has rejected ADPSR’s petition to prohibit members from designing solitary confinement cells and death chambers. However, architects should continue pressing AIA for such changes in its Code of Ethics.
In the meantime, by rejecting commissions to design facilities that can be used for inhumane treatment of prisoners, architects will send a public message about their stance on this issue. Architects also need to be more vocal in expressing their concerns about the mistreatments of prisoners in facilities they have designed. By creating platforms for dialogue and exchange of opinions, architects can engage with the public and educate themselves about the public opinion on this.
A critique to such approach is that it might be too quixotic to create real change. Boycotting prison design by architects may not solve the issue. In fact, it might make things worse for prisoners because the design task will be transferred to engineers, contractors and correction authorities. As architects, we are capable of using our expertise to come up with better designs to improve inmates’ living conditions. By being proactive, studying successful incarceration designs in other countries and providing models of proper design, we can champion small but steady changes toward a more humane prison architecture. Hearing what current and past inmates, as the main user group, have to say about their incarceration experience will also help with those improvements. Architects have a proven track record of using tools at their disposal such as light, color, materials, texture, air quality and acoustics to inform their design decisions and come up with better solutions for human inhabitance. Losing this opportunity to improve lives of those inmates would be a huge disservice to them.
“People in prison are a hard group to advocate for. With the exception of the unjustly imprisoned (a surprisingly high percentage in the US, even on death row, where their cases receive the most scrutiny), people in prison have broken the law, often harming others, sometimes horribly. But prisoners’ human rights are not about their crimes, but about protecting our societies from falling below a minimal level of decency and ensuring that we continue to aim for our highest aspirations.”
Raphael Sperry, President of ADPSR
SUMMARY
In this paper, I describe the conditions in which death row inmates are held in the US prison system and analyzes the moral consequences of that confinement. Given that most of these people have to spend the final decades of their lives prior to execution in solitary confinement, an ethical question is raised about complicity of architects as designers of facilities to be used for torture and execution of prisoners. At the end, I describe several positions that architects can take. Those options can be categorized into two main groups; Radical impact options versus gradual change solutions. Pursuing type I options, architects can boycott designing such facilities and join many other professions in pushing for justice and prison reform. Choosing type II options, they can use their expertise and knowledge in creating a more humane living condition for prisoners. Both of these categories of options have their benefits and limitations and an open dialogue about efficacy of each one is imperative.