The full recommendations of the Panel are presented in the insert but, in summary, the new prisons envisaged by the Panel would be distinguishable from existing prisons primarily by a number of characteristics.
The Panel proposes that the size and capacity of the new complexes would be much larger than any existing federal penitentiaries.
Instead of groups of inmates with the same classification level being housed in institutions with capacities ranging from a few hundred to 500-600 offenders, a regional complex could house between 1500 and 2000 offenders.”341
By building physically separate housing units within the complex while using common central services such as kitchens, case management, administration, and possibly work programs and visiting facilities, distinct populations would be housed, at least at nighttimes, in separate units.
Contrast this proposal with criteria Paget identifies as crucial to design respectful of human rights.
Human rights is fundamentally concerned with the dignity of the individual, thus from the perspective of prison architecture the challenge is to express that idea in the built form.. What is sought is an understanding of first, how architecture can assist in creating a physical setting which demonstrably recognises and responds to the needs of various cohorts of prisoners and their social organisation and second, how the features of this same setting impact on prisoner behaviour and the nature of the custodial experience. The architectural features and building sciences which need to be examined include the overall environment of the prison, its orientation, colour, light, noise, space, texture, furniture and fittings and building materials.
The Panel identifies what they consider to be the problems of discrete facilities in hampering effective consolidation of resources, limiting the provision of a “continuum of care” and losing economies of scale:
[Isolation of prisons within regions]...makes it extremely difficult to capitalize on approaches to manage the diverse challenges presented by the offender population. If a penitentiary is having difficulties with a certain group or category of offenders, it is difficult to combine resources within a region when the facilities are separated by hundreds of kilometres. In a crisis situation or when there’s a need to access professional services at a different institution, the geographical separation of the penitentiaries creates a unique set of problems.” 342
...In many cases, staff at the receiving penitentiary must re-start elements of the correctional planning process and valuable time is lost in managing the offender’s sentence.” 343
...having a physical infrastructure strategy that maintains an approach of separation, economies of scale are lost by replicating identical management, administrative and operational structures”344
We have no disagreement that all of these are currently problems for CSC. Our concern is the narrow focus that the Panel would bring to bear in addressing them and the Panel’s failure to identify a whole range of other issues that are crucial in redesigning the physical organization of imprisonment.
The Panel gives us this profile of the proposed regional complexes:
[They] would comprise minimum-, medium- and maximum-security accommodation areas, appropriately separated within a common perimeter fence but sharing common services and/or space at different times. For example, common programming or vocational skills development space could be accessed separately by different segments of the population or food services could be provided from a common preparation unit.
The presumed advantages of the proposed complexes include the following:
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A regional complex approach would provide an opportunity to more effectively and efficiently manage larger groups of inmates and use a larger pool of resources to address the needs of the inmates in a more targeted manner. 345
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A complex would certainly allow for a better concentration of staff to deliver select, targeted programs to offenders. 346
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It is reasonable to assume that waiting lists for programs could be reduced and that offenders would no longer have to wait, as they do in certain cases, to be transferred to another penitentiary before being able to access a program.347
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CSC could invest in relatively sophisticated equipment to screen not only people but also vehicles entering the compound. Also, drug detector dogs could be used much more effectively as well.348
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A regional complex would also be able to provide appropriate and separate accommodation for offenders at various security levels but provide a common management team to oversee the correctional plans and progress of offenders through their incarceration.349
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... avoid unnecessary costs associated with transferring inmates, the gaps that are created by having a new case management team assume responsibility for an offender every time he/she is transferred, and worrying about having to duplicate an array of programming responses in each and every penitentiary, despite its size. 350
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… the ability to reinforce an overall correctional management model that stresses offender accountability to follow their correctional plans. …. Offenders would usually be maintained and managed within the complex but their overall location within the complex would be dictated by their motivation and participation in their correctional plans. Services and resources would be aligned within the complex based on inmate participation and motivation. 351
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… provide an opportunity to focus resources to deal with distinct segments of the population or the distinct needs of segments of the population. For example, inmates who require ongoing physical health care needs could be housed in regional health care units thus avoiding high costs associated with prolonged stays in community hospitals. As well offenders with mental health care needs would have better access to services that are located in one facility and not thinly spread out between several penitentiaries.352
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This design would also provide an opportunity to more consistently address problems associated with having segregation units in every maximum- and medium-security penitentiary across the country. A common segregation unit within a complex would provide a more consistent approach to managing the behavioural problems that a small segment of the inmate population regularly presents. Common approaches by properly trained staff could provide a safer and more effective alternative to the smaller segregation units, which are not staffed properly, to motivate inmates to modify their behaviour in a positive way.353
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Furthermore, since the offender would, as a norm, remain in the same regional complex during the sentence, the potential of maintaining important family ties increases.354
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Although CSC has not had an opportunity to thoroughly identify overall cost savings associated with moving to a complex design approach, both the Panel and CSC believe this new approach would result in cost savings.355
The advantages identified above are provided without any evidence that such advantages might actually be realized or any analysis of the assumptions upon which they are based. Neither is there any discussion of possible disadvantages. Several multiplexes already exist within the federal system, as well as the new womens’ institutions but the Panel does not identify any studies by CSC that seek to measure whether these do deliver the benefits that are assumed by the Panel. Might some or all of the advantages the Panel identifies be contingent on the regional complex replacing existing prisons? Would the advantages apply to the same degree, or at all, if the complexes were in addition to existing prisons? Given that most of the costs of operating prisons are salary costs, might we expect that the savings that might occur with more “efficient” prisons be strongly resisted by the unionized staff – ultimately defeating the potential for savings?
Among the factors ignored by the Panel are those that relate to the actual environment of the prison and the degree to which that environment is conducive to the personal development of those who live and work there. In thinking about the specifics of the prison and in particular the common facilities for all of the sub-prisons in the proposed complexes we would be wise to keep in mind Paget’s comments about “hard” and “soft” architecture.
Institutional life is mediated by institutional architecture. Hard architecture sends a clear and negative message about society’s attitude towards its prisoners and the prevailing law and order approach. The materials of hard architecture are robust, if not industrial, and are selected on the basis of cost, durability and ease of maintenance, rather than aesthetics. Hard architecture lacks permeability and encourages psychological withdrawal. It also invites assault for, as Sommer (1974: 12) observes ‘human ingenuity can always find a way to destroy things that are physically or spiritually oppressive’.
“Soft” architecture also provides a cue to behaviour. The prison experience should encourage the prisoner to respect the society and its values which are reflected in the conditions of imprisonment. Under a human rights framework, there is no real reason why these conditions should not include the elimination of many of the overt symbols of incarceration, such as razor wire, to reduce the sense of trauma caused by sudden removal from the outside environment and placement in another which is so far removed from the norm. The conditions of imprisonment should also provide, where feasible, for prisoner defensible space, which is defined by real and symbolic barriers that combine to bring an environment under a degree of control by its occupants. This, in turn, invites personalisation, that is, the ability to put an individual imprint on one’s immediate surroundings, as a counter to deindividuation. 356
Recognizing that the elements of “hard” architecture may be necessary more often for high-security prisoners than those at other levels, we should question how the notions of the less restrictive “soft” architecture could exist for low security inmates who would have to share many of the same spaces as higher- risk prisoners in a regional complex model. This is already a problematic feature of the new womens’ institutions where double chain link fences restictively define the status of “minimum security” prisoners.
Other questions abound, such as:
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With common areas used by different security levels, would not all those areas need to be built with the maximum security risk in mind – thereby subjecting lower security prisoners to more restrictive movement and supervision? Can that be consistent with the fundamental principle of least restrictive means?
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Would the ability to invest in new drug detection hardware and dogs not mean that even those in lower security would now be subject, along with their families, to far more intrusive and otherwise unjustified screening – along with all of the problems such searches imply as discussed in our section on Drugs?
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Can treatment, school or correctional staff – even administrators easily move between prisoner groups of various security levels and adjust to these groups in an appropriate manner or will they tend to act as though all were higher security prisoners?
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Can distinct groups make use of common areas at different times (i.e., programs, recreation, work or visiting) without severely limiting access to these areas thereby also limiting their rights, programs, recreation, work or visiting activity?
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Can the units be kept sufficiently distinct without building solid barriers between them? Will those in protective custody or who are otherwise vulnerable such as the mentally ill be within sight and sound of other prisoners – particularly when in the outdoor recreational spaces?
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If solid barriers are used to separate populations, would those barriers serve to recreate some of the most oppressive environments and undermine entirely the notion of minimum security?
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Given that prisoners today are already subjected to persistent changes of case management staff (frequently every few months) why should we expect that regional complexes would see less staff changes?
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Might ease of transfer between security levels contribute to growth in the higher security levels?
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Might that same ease of transfer begin to compromise the procedural protections designed to ensure that transfers to higher security are made in accordance with the duty to act fairly and in accordance with fundamental principles of justice?357
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Would a common segregation area not mean that those in segregation for their own safety would be subjected to the highest security regime? And how might they be reintegrated back into general population? Currently, several prisons in Canada are viewed as being ones where people who have been segregated for their protection can be more easily integrated back into the general population. Without such options the segregated protective custody population continues to grow and prisoners housed in protective custody are virtually excluded from progression to lower security and eventual parole. What will be the impact if all protective custody prisoners remain within the same complex?
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Would the important advantage in the administration of smaller prisons of staff knowing the prisoners, and the converse, be lost in an environment with populations four to five times the size of today’s largest federal prisons?
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With new prisons typically built in the more remote areas away from community services and professionals, might it become more difficult, rather than less difficult, to recruit sufficient specialists to meet the heavy demand of very large prison complexes?
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Would prisons in more remote areas make access for many families even more difficult than it is for many now where prisons are in municipalities? Even in Kingston there is an enormous difference in accessibility between Collins Bay, which lies within the city limits and is serviced by city buses and Millhaven, one of the proposed sites, which is well outside the city and requires an expensive cab fare to reach?
All of these questions relate directly to the ways in which prison design has a dramatic bearing on how prisoners are treated and the protection of their human rights. Administrative convenience has always been a major counterpoint to human rights358 and a massively large institution justified almost entirely on the bases of administrative convenience and efficiencies could well shift the pressure even more against the human rights perspective. We believe we could easily make the case that each of the problems we have identified in the above questions is at least as valid as the “advantages” suggested by the Panel.
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