In late October 2019, various professionals in the Justice Sector including those working in design and law enforcement, came together in San Diego, CA to engage in workshops, lectures and discussions around the political, ethical, economic and sustainability challenges that designing for security and welfare present. Speakers and attendees of the AAJ Fall Conference 2019 contributed innovative ideas that are breaking down the stigmas associated with the traditional punitive Justice System and reducing recidivism by way of inmate re-integration into the community through design and treatment.
The David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center Expansion by Dewberry in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and The Restoration Center in San Antonio, Texas, are a couple examples of facilities that have begun to blur the boundaries between mental health treatment and incarceration by diverting those with mental illness from the traditional punitive justice system and incorporating evidence-based design into their facilities.
Breaking Down Barriers Between Community Correctional Facilities
The David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center (also known as the Tulsa County Jail), was opened in 1999 with a total capacity of 1,714 beds. As of 2014, the justice center struggled with overpopulation and lacked mental health services, issues that many detention facilities are facing in the US and Canada. A much-needed expansion with specialized housing and treatment for those inmates living with chronic mental illness was approved in 2014.
In 2017, the new Expansion of the David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center was substantially complete. The 43,000 square-foot expansion included the addition of 98 beds throughout four tiers divided by four levels of security, facilities for video court processing and counseling spaces, and two pods of general population units with 160 beds (dorm style). The expansion is washed by generous amounts of daylight to impart a more humanistic and therapeutic environment, despite only providing limited interior views between all four pods.
Subdividing the mental health unit into four tiers was not only in response to a programmatic need to compartmentalize inmate populations, but rather to encourage behavioral self-improvement through passive architectural design: a tiered pod system. The tiers are arranged to allow a continuous clockwise transition between the pods, which are physically divided by full-height window walls. By providing inmates with internal views of “upper” and “lower” tiers, a psychological reward system contingent on behavioral self-improvement appears to be encouraged and conditioned. Voluntary improvement may be critical, along with treatment, to achieve positive and tangible change within an individual who is constrained physically by security barriers and psychologically by mental illness.
As of 2019, twenty to thirty inmates at the David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center earn their GED annually and are presented with a certificate of completion. Recidivism is being reduced by design, treatment, and education.
Community Engagement and the Continuum of Care
The city of San Antonio has taken the lead in diverting people living with mental illness from the traditional justice system towards treatment through The Restoration Center, opened to the public in 2008. The Restoration Center acts as an interface between detention and treatment through sobering units, extended observation units and detox rooms in Bexar County.
The Restoration Center provides law enforcement with a one-stop shop when a crisis arises. Officers in San Antonio go through 40 hours of crisis intervention training to identify crimes caused by substance abuse, mental or behavioral health issues. Once identified and picked up on-site, the interaction and drop-off at The Restoration center is limited to 10 minutes on average, allowing officers to get back on the job more quickly.
By preventing people with mental illness from entering the traditional punitive system, San Antonio is decongesting jails that would traditionally house detainees awaiting inpatient state hospital beds and providing immediate access to treatment and opportunities for community reintegration.
Since San Antonio begun targeting mental illness in 2008, an average of 100,000 manpower hours of law enforcement have been redirected to the streets, over 2,000 people have been treated and reintroduced to the community every month, and over 200,000 dollars have been saved from housing and operations in jails, saving tax payers an average of 50 million dollars over the past 9 years.
Conclusion
The Emerging Professional Scholarship provides tremendous value by creating a channel for introducing new ideas to long-had conversations. The stigmas that mental health and incarceration have carried throughout time is evolving into new typologies where mental health is at the forefront, evidence-based design provides therapeutic spaces and pre-emptive measures help decongest the justice sector.
The energy and enthusiasm that AAJ participants shared during the conference is truly inspiring, especially as a young professional navigating the profession.
As designers, we are dreamers and idealists. We argue for change knowing that change won’t happen by design alone. We engage in justice reform as servants to the public, knowing that there is much work to be done to continue to put an end to the stigmas associated with mental health issues. These are multilayered social and ethical challenges, which require us to remember that designing for Public Health, Safety and Welfare isn’t reserved only to the free.
Nicolas Caceres is an Associate AIA, Design Coordinator at HDR in Los Angeles, California.