A Danish prison with the lofty aim of reducing recidivism by way of good design could act as a testing ground for U.S. activists and architects, who want to close the notorious Rikers Island and replace it with smaller, community-based jails.
The grounds are modeled after a regular Danish village, complete with open space and buildings with distinctively Scandinavian architecture — think angled facades, lots of glass, and natural materials. You won't see anyone "behind bars," so to speak, as the individual cells look more like dorm rooms with windows, a bed, a private bathroom, desk and reading lamp. There's no central cafeteria; instead groups of four to seven cells share communal kitchens where they prepare their own meals. They also share a living area, which is furnished and painted so it doesn't have an institutional feel.
The idea is to re-socialize inmates in an environment that more closely mirrors their day-to-day lives so that when they're freed, they won't become repeat offenders. It's a strategy more widely applied in Denmark than the U.K. or U.S., and according to Fast Company, it seems to be working. Denmark's recidivism rate is about 27 percent, roughly half the rate of the U.S., which ranges from 49 percent to 80 percent depending on the crime.
Normalizing prison design — rather than designing to isolate and break inmates down — is a strategy that's being increasingly embraced by reform advocates in the U.S. Rikers' design is so severe that it actually undermines inmate safety, largely because "poor sight lines, bad acoustics and decaying facilities 'provide multiple opportunities to fashion weapons,'" Catesby Holmes wrote for Next City in July. Advocates are pushing to close the complex and replace it with smaller facilities sprinkled throughout the city. The prisons' exterior design would blend in with the surrounding neighborhood, and their interior design would prioritize natural light, green space and views of the city so inmates could prepare for re-entry into society and feel less isolated.
But the push for better prison design isn't embraced by everyone. In Denmark, residents have expressed concern that the conditions at Storstrøm are too luxurious to serve as punishment, Sputnik News recently reported. And in the U.S., some architects believe the problem isn't jail design, it's the criminal justice system itself, which disproportionately targets young men of color.