In design we have various standards and guidelines for the buildings and spaces we design. When it comes to healthcare in correctional environments there are no standards to designing these spaces. This can be a positive and a negative. There can be quite a variation from state to state within these facilities. Depending on the inmate population these facilities and care are provided within the prison or at a local hospital.
When thinking of the proposed site we are challenging in this studio, 31st & Kedzie, is just one block away from the Cook County Jail. A healthy community would involve a healthy correctional environment. In 2008 findings that the inmates’ eighth amendment rights were being violated were released by the civil rights division of the United States Department of Justice. These findings are as follows:
Systematic beatings by corrections officers
Poor food quality
Inmates' being forced to sleep on cell floors due to overcrowding and mismanagement
Rodent infestation and injury caused to sleeping inmates by rat and mouse bites
Violations of privacy during multiple invasive strip searches
Failure to provide adequate medical care, including failure to dispense medications
Invasive and painful mandatory tests for male STDs
Unnecessarily long waiting time for discharge upon payment of bond, completion of sentence, or charges' being dropped. Wait times are currently routinely in excess of 8 hours, nearly all of which is spent with many inmates packed into tiny cells
This kind of environment poses these two against each other, Health Network vs Punishment Network. These two shouldn’t be pushing against one another but working together to create a healthy community within the walls of the prison. These inmates are set to return back into the community and with living conditions listed above, they are being set up to either return back to the jail or infest the community.
In an article done by Healthcare and Design Magazine, the importance of balance is key between safety and healing. It is important to create safe environments for the caregivers and the inmate-patients. These kinds of environments can be hard to promote healing and improve outcomes, but it is our job as designers to implement designs that promote this. There are three evidence-based design solutions that are used in typical medical facilities that can be applied to these correctional environments and are as follows:
Sense of safety
Nature view
Noise
By using these design solutions as a basis of design we can apply this to our healthcare campus to help alleviate the community in the prison which can in return help the community of Lawndale.
Sources:
Image: http://nehandaradio.com/2015/09/22/thieving-a-level-student-locked-up/
Comments