Background
Modern prison is a facility that is expected to take care of one thousand inmates aged from 18 to 25 years. This press release gives an analysis of the jail’s physical structure.
The Structure of Modern Prison
The prison will be made with facilities to accommodate a maximum of 1000 inmates. There are various facilities that must be built to ensure that the jail’s mission and vision are attained effectively. Before one gets to the prison, he/she will have to be cleared by a reception office located at the gate. Let’s describe various facilities in the prison;
Location of the Facility
The facility will be located in Los Angeles County. It will be located in an area of 200 acres of land fenced and well-lighted 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The various facilities in the prison and the reason why they have been included
Administration Block
It will be a three-floor building which will accommodate all the staff in the administrative duties. It will be situated in the middle of the facility. It will be the highest building in the facility, and the upper floor will be used for monitoring purposes. There will be a security monitoring office, where at a glance, the officer in charge can see the entire prison (Gilfoyle, 2003). Administration block will be made of glasses all over to assist in close monitoring of inmates from the premises all the time.
Farm
The facility will have a farm at the end corner; the farm will be used to produce foods for the inmates, where convicts will be used as farm laborers. On the farm, there will be seven cow sheds and a plantation of maize.
Playground
The facility will have a playing ground of various games; there is a football field, a basketball court, a baseball diamond, and an area to lift weights. The playground will be in front of the dormitories and located at a place where monitoring will be easy.
Monitoring points
Officers on duty will have a strong room where they can monitor the treads of inmates through computer-aided surveillance and physical monitoring. This is in the efforts of the facility to ensure that there are adequate security 24hours a day, seven days a week. There will be cameras all over the place for monitoring, and they will be controlled from the strong room.
Dormitories
Inmates living quarters will be a two-story building that will be divided into different sections. The buildings will handle 300 Drug Offenders (there will be 150 Cubical in the building), 300 Property crimes (there will be 150 Cubical in the building), and 400 Crimes on A Person (there will be 200 Cubicles in the building). Two men will be allocated to one cell that is furnished with a bump bed, toilet, and a face bowl to wash their face. The cell will be 8 feet by 8 feet that has two levels, first floor and second floor. All the cells will be facing toward the center aisle that has guards posted 24 hours a day. Access to the dormitory will be after nine until the following day, early in the morning (the latest will be eight o’clock).
Vocational Training Center
The facility will have a vocational training center, which will have the following courses to offer: – computers, carpentry, plumbing, auto mechanics, and electrician. Each inmate will be required to establish a major from the aforementioned trades. The facilities will be located next to the farm, and inmates will be required to follow the teaching timetable strictly. The capacity of these training facilities will be two hundred inmates. A class will be made of fifty inmates, and if the number has not arrived, the arriving inmate can join an existing class (Mitchel, 2006).
Common Rooms
There will be two common rooms that will be utilized for counseling purposes and as the visitors’ center. In the sentencing life of an inmate, he is expected to undertake numerous counseling lessons; they will be conducted in these rooms. On public visiting days, the rooms will be converted to inmates and visitors’ meeting points. In the same building, entertainment for the inmates will be taking place. This kind of entertainment includes fashion shows, talent shows, and other self-generated entertainment. The capacity of the facility is 2000 people. It has one floor, but the pulpit will be shared (Williamson, Riches, and Higgs, 1990).
Religious Buildings
There will be a church that will enable all Christian faiths, Jews, Catholics, and Buddhists to worship; there will also be a mosque where Muslims will be allowed to conduct their masses. Access to these buildings is limited to morning prayers and each denomination’s prayers day (Berger, 1983).
Parking/garage
The parking area of the facility will also constitute a garage. In most cases, repairs and general maintenance of the facilities vehicles will be done by mechanic inmates. Members of the public visiting the facility will not be allowed to park in the facility but will be allowed to park in the field.
Inmates will be repairing automobiles for selected public members; this will be from some companies contacted by the facility or individuals who have booked a day with the prison. This will help in raising extra revenue.
What will it look like?
The model of the facility will be made to cater to all the needs of inmates; for example, each cell will sleep two men in a bump bed, and the cell will have a toilet with a tin mirror on the wall. (See the two-dimension diagram attached for the layout)
What level of security will be provided?
The facility is a low-use jail where there will be monitoring security in the administration building, and each Day Room building will have several correctional officers in the building. It will be a low usage facility. Inmates require strict rules and guidelines to be set to uphold discipline. The security may not necessarily be armed, but measures should be taken to ensure that the inmates adhere to the set rules of the institutions. Despite the fact that the inmates will be kept free, security will be maintained 24hours a day and 7days a week.
How does your jail design support your jail’s functions and goals?
There will be training classes this will develop skills that an inmate can utilize later in life. Various counseling programs will facilitate the integration of the inmates after they have been released. The inmates will also play a part in the financial management of the facility when they are involved in farming activities to feed themselves.
The facility will be generating some revenue to finance its operations. The revenue will come from; repair of the motor vehicle done by inmates to motor vehicles donated by private citizens, then auctioning them, and the proceeds will go to the facility; some of the farm produce will be sold in an open farmers market in prison and general public once a week and the money will go to the facility; as recreation and entertainment guards will play the inmates in Football and Basketball to raise money. There will be numerous Concerts performed in the facility that will generate revenue for the facility as well. That will be open to the public.
What are the advantages and the disadvantages of the jail as you have designed it?
Advantages
The prison is one with a human face that aims at rehabilitating inmates. It aims at ensuring that after an inmate has been released, he will be able to integrate effectively with society. He will not only be given social skills but will also be given a course that he can use in life.
Secondly, the prison is more likely to be efficient since it will cater to an age bracket that is the same; thus, conducting programs will be easy. On the other hand, it aims at facilitating a personal decision to change and thus addresses the root cause of a problem and not symptoms (Anon, 2010). With the same age group, programs will be easy to administer.
Disadvantages
The facility is a high-cost facility to build and maintain. It will require collaboration between the private sector and the full support of the government.
The age that the facility aims to handle can harm itself if security measures are relaxed. Maintaining a high level of security at all times and deploying experienced professionals to counsel the inmates is an expensive venture (National Park Service, 2002). The facility will hold capital offenders and those with petty crimes; this may be a criminal building ground as they interact.
Two Dimension Structure
Reference List
Anon. (2010). Jails – Jail Structure and Design Characteristics. Web.
Berger, M. (1983) [1942]. “The Tombs”. The Eight Million: Journal of a New York Correspondent (Columbia University Press Morningside ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 23–35. ISBN 9780231057103.
Gilfoyle, J. (2003). ““America’s Greatest Criminal Barracks”: The Tombs and the Experience of Criminal Justice in New York City, 1838-1897”. Journal of Urban History 29 (5): 525–554. Web.
Mitchel, P. (2006). Prisons and Prison Systems: A Global Encyclopedia. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313328565. OCLC 60835344.
National Park Service. (2002). Appomattox Court House: Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. Virginia: U.S. Dept. of the Interior.
Williamson, E., Riches, A., and Higgs, M. (1990).The Buildings of Scotland: Glasgow. London: Penguin Books.