Even if an inmate's sentence is not oppressively long, their treatment while incarcerated can still constitute subhuman treatment. Prisons are not medical facilities, but they regularly are forced to deal with mental health problems and care for elderly and terminally ill inmates. Food, if it's even edible, usually lacks enough nutrition for inmates' health to not deteriorate. Plus, with a lack of opportunities to see family, read, or gain skill sets, inmates are placed in buildings which lack any resemblance of the civilized world.
“Now that prison populations are leveling off or falling, corrections officials are revisiting the podular model, which comes in many variations. The basic element is a suite holding from about 16 to 40 inmates, who can be surveilled by a single corrections officer. Meals are brought to inmates in the pod, which ideally has outside views and includes a day room, toilets, showers, and counseling and medical-exam rooms all within the locked perimeter.“
Architectural Record
March 4, 2019
Read More“The MASS report for Vera charts the evolution of carceral typologies, develops a framework for evaluating the current landscape of prisons, and culminates with a vision for a “reimagined system” in which the mission and objectives of the current model are shifted from a retributive, punitive, and sequestering approach to a restorative and therapeutic one—one which many experts believe could greatly reduce the high recidivism rate and help former inmates succeed in reentering their communities.“
Architectural Record
March 4, 2019
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