Parsons School of Design / Architecture
Fall 1999 2nd Year Graduate Studio / Natsios
17 september 1999
Inside the new high-tech lock-downs
by JIM RENDON from Salon Magazine
Prison gadgetry promises to save money and reduce overcrowding -- but at what cost?
Excerpt: ..."To develop efficient plans for people like King, designers have looked all the way back to Jeremy Bentham, the 18th century British utilitarian philosopher and grandfather of the hottest trend in prison design today. Bentham, a social reformer, drew up plans for his ideal prison, the panopticon -- a circular cell-house with a central guard station where a few officers could watch over hundreds of inmates stacked many stories high. Prison administrators following Bentham believed that the specter of constant surveillance would make prisoners more apt to follow rules and help them integrate into society when they were released. Bentham's plan also required fewer guards -- a fact that has not been lost on today's prison designers.
Charles Oraftik runs the criminal justice division of Hellmuth Obata and Kassabaum, the San Francisco architectural firm that designed the Twin Towers. He points to the circular prison plan in front of him, noting the ease with which inmates can be viewed by a single, centrally placed guard. Because staffing costs can far outstrip a prison's original price tag, designers are now under intense pressure to dream up buildings that allow fewer staff to control ever larger numbers of inmates. "The most important thing is to be secure and efficient. If your building is not efficient, it can cost you," Oraftik says. Improving sight lines from the control booth to the prison floor and into every cell is the key to keeping guard-to-inmate ratios low."...
from Salon Magazine http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/feature/1998/09/cov_08feature.html