I think the California experience is an important lesson about prison overcrowding and what architects can do. My take on it is that California tried to built its way out of prison overcrowding for the past few decades with over two dozen major state prisons, each holding around 2,000 people. And despite that, overcrowding became so bad that the US Supreme Court decided it was unconstitutional. So as many observers put it, you can't build your way out of this problem.
The real problem California has, which I assume we all know, is with its sentencing laws and some of its public officials. We have one of the worst three-strikes laws in the country, long determinate sentences, and a pointless war on marijuana. We have a great disparity among DAs -- some show admirable fairness, others overcharge every person possible in order to get easy convictions and pad their statistics. Whether you end up in prison for years or not depends sometimes on whether your offense was a mile on one side or the other of a county line. Hardly the mark of an equitable justice system.
We also have a governor who considers himself as above the US Supreme Court when it comes to determining if conditions meet constitutional standards, and who demagogues the issue of early prisoner releases with the idea that every person in prison is basically a violent assault waiting to happen. In contrast, the CA Senate President noted that "if we spend more money in building more prisons or jail beds, that's less money to invest in mental health, substance abuse, treatment and vocational training for parolees and probationers... The key is to reduce recidivism, not to keep building more capacity." (
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/04/5394221/prisons-aksjldkajsdaksjldaskjd.html)
As an architect, I ask myself, would I take on a client facing potential contempt of court charges for his willful mishandling of the prison system, and who won't even seek the agreement of a very reasonable state legislature for population reduction measures? And, given that we have more than enough prison space in California already, what alternative projects would help to reduce crime in the communities where they are occurring?
Thanks for opening this discussion, Erin.
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Raphael Sperry AIA
San Francisco CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2013 23:17
From: Erin Costino
Subject: Is there an answer to prison overcrowding?
California Governor Jerry Brown is proposing a plan to alleviate prison overcrowding that even he opposes. Read it about it at the link below:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ff-brown-prisons-20130504,0,6230589.story?page=1
Is there an answer to overcrowding? Should architects be involved in this debate? If so, how?
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Erin Costino, M.A.
Ph.D. Student
University of California, Irvine
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