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
Arriving at a prison – any prison – still makes my heart race a little faster. I have been to more than 100 prisons for my research into how architecture and design can assist in rehabilitating offenders. But my first visit after 18 months of lockdown, to a prison deep in one of England’s most rural counties, felt especially disorienting. I sat quietly for a moment looking up at the towering wall that encircles the car park. It’s topped with coils of razor wire that unfurl like a giant, spiky Slinky, scaring off curious pigeons, but catching every plastic carrier bag that floats on the breeze.
The surly brick edifice doesn’t reveal an obvious entrance. Straight ahead is a large door, but it’s for the vehicles that bring inmates to the prison. You’ll probably have seen the white escort vans on the motorway. Known as “sweatboxes” or “meat wagons”, they are three-tonne trucks with darkly tinted square windows placed high up on the side. Inside are small compartments like upright coffins, three feet wide, three feet deep and seven feet tall, with a moulded plastic seat and no seatbelt. Some people spend long hours in these vans as they are transported, sometimes hundreds of miles, between courts and prisons.
