Visualizing Prison Life: Does Prison Architecture Influence Correctional Officer Behaviour? An Exploratory Study

Abstract

How much can prison architecture influence prisoner-correctional officer behaviour? Compared to old style, large and long corridor linear prison units, new style “direct supervision” architecture offers smaller units and a podular design that its proponents claim are expected to encourage greater interaction between correctional staff and prisoners. More interaction is intended to lead to more informal CO influence and less use of coercive relations to manage prisoners. Little research has been done, however, to confirm this rather bold claim, particularly the notion of more time spent interacting. To explore the influence of unit type on CO- prisoner behaviour, we observed and then compared the time officers spent speaking with prisoners on direct supervision units with officers on linear units. Headingley Correctional Centre, a provincial institution in Manitoba was considered an ideal site because it has both old style linear units in their main building, constructed in 1930, and direct supervision units, built in 2000. The direct supervision physical design at Headingley and practice of stationing of the officer right on the unit clearly appeared to increase opportunities and time spent interacting with prisoners. The short periods of time spent on the linear units by correctional officers made it very difficult to use an interactive style of prisoner management. Results indicated that architecture mattered, and direct supervision units promoted more correctional officer-prisoner interaction.