As correctional and mental health designers we have a heavy responsibility and a significant opportunity to create real and lasting change in the community we serve by designing secure facilities that deinstitutionalise and normalise the prison experience to make the transition out of the prison system is easier.

When you consider that every prisoner released will be interacting with society, it’s important to ask through the design, ‘What do we want those individuals to be like when they are back into the community, and what is the optimum environment to create the best citizens?’

Combine this train of thought with a growing body of research showing that working in a correctional centre not only decreases mental health, but it also increases staff suicide rates, heart disease, blood pressure and family breakdown, and you can see why harsh prison environments aren’t the answer. A calm physical environment is more likely to be a safe and secure environment. Staff and visiting family members (another key element in rehabilitation) need to be considered through the design.

It's why we implement several methods to decrease stress levels and subconscious anxiety through our designs. Increased access to daylight and external spaces, connection to nature, minimising unnecessary auditory pollution, clever planning solutions and increased passive surveillance are all ways we improve physical and mental health to decrease user anxiety and increase security.

Yvonne Jewkes, Professor of Criminology at the University of Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, who has worked with GB-A on several correctional projects, had this to say about GB-A’s rehabilitative approach:

“Kavan is unusual, in my experience of prison architects, at least, in that his designs are underpinned by clinical and social scientific research evidence. Designing prisons to rehabilitate offenders is not easy, because of the systemic, structural, and social disadvantages that most prisoners come from, and return to, on release from custody. GB-A understands this, but also believes that prison design can make a profound difference to rehabilitative outcomes.

In part, it is about making practical decisions concerning where to situate key workers like prison officers, psychologists, and teachers in relation to prisoners, how many workshops and classrooms are required, how prisoner movement can be facilitated to allow a degree of autonomy and choice, and so on. But these things are also about treating prisoners with decency, dignity, and respect to help them on their rehabilitative journey.”

You can read more about how we are helping to break cycles around corrections under corporate responsibility.