What are you most passionate about in regards to Justice Planning and Design?
As a justice planner, I am most passionate about planning for justice facilities that can help to achieve long-term health improvements and positive outcomes for justice-involved people; incorporating scientific research, best practices and evidence-based solutions; providing clients (and a plurality of justice system stakeholders) with data-driven information, resources, and right-sized and innovative solutions; and identifying methods for tracking and measuring progress towards improved outcomes for individuals, families and communities impacted by the criminal justice system.
How did you join the Leadership Group?
I was nominated to become a member of the AAJ national LG. This came as a suprsie to me since I had not applied to serve on the LG. As such, I accepted the nomination with great honor and I do really appreciate the privilege to serve on this group of dedicate and passionate professionals. Prior to this nomination, my involvement with the AAJ goes back to 2008 when, for the first time, I attended (and presented) at the AAJ Annual Conference in Boston, MA. Since then, I have participated in the AAJ annual conferences on a regular basis. More specifically, my first exposure to the LG members came in 2011, when I was asked to act as the Detention/Corrections track leader of the annual conference in Los Angeles. In 2013, I was featured by the NextGeneration sub-committee as an “emerging professional” and a year later participated in a NextGen panel at the 2014 AAJ Annual Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. Finally, in 2017 I was selected to act as the Conference Chair of the AAJ Annual Conference held in Cincinnati, OH.
What do you expect will be the most rewarding about being involved in the Leadership Group?
As a member of the leadership team, I hope I can help to increase awareness and be part of the collective leadership efforts to continue advocating for more inclusive strategies and for investing in restorative justice practices and innovative architectural principles that can better help address some of the current pressing social and racial justice concerns.
What initiatives within the Leadership group do you want to champion during your tenure?
I would love to champion a research and exposure to alternative practices that can help reduce the racial injustices of mass incarceration international trends and, creating a space to exchange ideas and address common topics of interest. A particular focus of personal interest would be exploring how architecture and architects can affect broader social justice goals through the planning and design of a new building typologies and service facilities (e.g. recreation, civic and community centers, transition housing, independent living apartments, emergency shelters, deflection centers, etc.) that focus on revitalizing underserved neighborhoods. This community-investment approach calls for facilities that are people-oriented, more aligned with community involvement and more suitable at serving the needs of a diverse population; in sum, facilities where neighborhood residents can directly benefit from access to a variety of preventive programs, quality health, educational, recreational, social and counseling services and coordinated activities.
How do you hope see the LG evolving overt the next few years?
The
recent AIA position statement in light of the ongoing social justice movement has opened new opportunities for the LG (and the AAJ community at large) to engage in new collaborative approaches to re-examine the role that planners and architects can have in reducing the criminal justice system footprint.
About Marayca
Marayca Lopez is an expert consultant of distinguished ability and accomplishment in the field of criminal justice with an extensive education and international background in penology and criminology. Having exclusively dedicated her academic and professional careers to the justice sector, she possess a keen understanding of the overall criminal justice system and, more specifically, of correctional systems for justice-involved youth and adults offenders.
Marayca's body of work is international in scope. She has participated in a wide array of criminal justice reform projects and prison studies, both domestically and abroad (e.g. Australia, Canada, Europe, Central and South America, and the Caribbean), resulting in worldwide expertise and a deep understanding of correctional best practices, modern prison operations, and innovative models for offender management and intervention.
For the last 15 years, Marayca has served as a Justice Facility Planner. In that capacity she has helped to plan and program multiple correctional facilities that are holistic in their approach, preserve human rights, promote rehabilitation and treatment, are safe and humane, and focused on innovative operational and programmatic models for positive behavioral change and successful re-entry.
Whether as volunteer, collaborator, or lobbyist, she is actively involved with different international organizations that share the common goal of advancing the field of criminal justice and improving conditions of confinement for individuals deprived of liberty. She is a member of the International Corrections and Prison’s Association’s (ICPA) Planning and Design Committee and has an on-going collaboration with the Correctional Association of New York (Women in Prison Project), the UN Friends of Corrections, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Penal Reform International (PRI) on issues related to the humanization of prisons, monitoring of detention practices, and improvement of incarceration conditions. She is a frequent speaker and/or lecturer in a variety of academic, professional, and international forums.