It's been 1 week since the 2014 AAJ conference kicked off in St. Louis and each scholar has been asked to write a summary to recap their experience at the event. I want to thank AIA again for giving me the opportunity to attend my first AAJ conference.
I really walked away with a great experience and some new perspectives on the future of our Justice system and how architects can make a difference with design and also how we as a collective society can try to make a difference in our communities. It was an ideal place for meeting new faces, networking with peers and mentors, getting reacquainted with distant colleagues and attending many educational seminars about what we do in this profession and why we do it.
To begin, we heard an inspiring speech from Judge Edwards, 22nd Circuit Court of Missouri, who founded the Innovative Concept Academy for at risk youth. His education program is finding tremendous success by providing extra supervision and limiting idle time to kids who lack any supervision and have far too much idle time, combined with economic poverty, leads to nowhere good, says Judge Edwards.
We also heard first hand experiences from some inspired young people from the city of St. Louis who found hope and a path to a brighter future through a program called Youth Build which teaches young people skills and responsibility and how to make a difference in the community. The statistics of the program speak for themselves, I can't do the program justice, the stories were incredible.
Gary Mohr, Director of Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction gave an emphatic speech about reducing recidivism and providing more programs for people inside jail to become productive members in society upon release. He stressed that building more prisons and jails is not his solution in Ohio.
The JFR Awards banquet was a blast. The 10 story slide and the City Museum in St. Louis was an ideal venue for architects. The highlighted design projects at the awards ceremony were impressive to say the least and those projects can be found on the AIA AAJ page.
The tour of the Buzz Westfall Justice Center was a memorable experience. The facility is nearly 15 years old and still looks like a modern and well maintained facility. After working on corrections facilities for nearly 6 years, I can say it is the first populated detention facility that I have visited. The environment that I saw was more normative than what one might expect to see in a jail facility; carpet on the dayroom floors, wood cell doors, ceramic plumbing fixtures.
I attended all seminars for the Corrections and Detention education track, fitting for my previous work history, and I noticed a few common themes and messages throughout the 3 day conference. Our justice system is evolving and we need to evolve with it.
Overcrowding is a growing problem
The United States leads the world for incarceration. The question we need to ask ourselves is how can we reduce our prison population and meet the problem in our communities before it leads to acts of crime and a jail sentence. One proposed solution is to provide programs in the community such as Youth Build and the Innovative Concept Academy.
A high percentage of inmates have mental health issues
Our current prison system is serving in large part as a mental health facility but the facilities in place do not necessarily meet design criteria to be most advantageous for those inmates with mental health issues. Facilities with normative environments, natural light, trained staff, and programs for treatment and re-entry are seeing better results than past facilities that do not address mental health.
A high percentage of inmates are serving extensive sentences for non-violent drug charges
Treatment programs and re-entry programs are highly effective and extremely important for preventing recidivism. Drug addiction is a serious issue that is difficult to battle without proper treatment programs. Drug addiction and substance abuse is considered an illness by many clinical professionals.
Sustainability can't be overlooked
Social justice and social responsibility are not entirely different. The built environment is responsible for 70% of carbon emissions. The socially responsible impact we can make as architects is by pushing to reduce carbon emissions and build net zero buildings. The conference and the sustainability workshop on Saturday is a platform where can share best practices and project case studies and learn from each other for how to design safe and secure facilities that meet ACA standards and LEED standards simultaneously. It's a challenge but we are problem solvers.
With my recap complete, I hope to see some new and familiar faces at the conference in 2015!
RCE