Get the latest tech news

'Places to heal, not to harm': brutal prison design kills off hope

The long read: From razor-wire fences and crumbling cells to no windows and overcrowding, conditions in most jails mean rehabilitation is a nonstarter. Here’s how we can create better spaces for prisoners

The white vans pass through an airlock into an interior courtyard and come to a halt immediately outside the entrance, where prisoners are cuffed and taken one at a time into reception, their clothes and belongings removed and placed in storage for the duration of their sentence. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesSometimes, prisoners’ good intentions will come to nothing, simply because the force of the past proves stronger than the pull of the future, but, as my psychologist friend said, architecture could have an enabling role – one that “de-labels” the criminal and “re-labels” them with a positive identity as responsible parent, skilled motor mechanic, university student, talented artist, horticulturist or whatever it might be. Chalke told me he wanted the new secure school to carry no tainted association with the previous private sector-run centre – an ambition he admitted is not helped by the fact that Oasis has inherited the buildings and site of the notorious Medway, and is overlooked by Cookham Wood, a young offender institution that was issued an “urgent notification” in April 2023 after the prisons inspector found that a third of the children held there are in solitary confinement for up to 23-and-a-half hours a day with no access to a shower or fresh air.

Get the Android app