“Manhattan Criminal Court is a pretty foreboding and intimidating place, especially for those who are there for the first time,” says Emily LaGratta, director of procedural justice initiatives at the Center for Court Innovation. Changes included installing new, visitor-friendly signage and erecting a defendants’ bill of rights. In August of last year, officials partnered with the Center for Court Innovation and the social-impact design firm Zago to overhaul the interior spaces of Manhattan Criminal Court. The idea of using design and architecture to influence behavior is not a new one for New York City. In upstate New York, for example, camplike facilities that are embedded among pristine lakes and trees, and where inmates sleep in barracks, not cells, have seen markedly low recidivism rates.
There’s evidence prisoners’ surroundings can affect their outcomes. “Light, sound and the arrangement of space are important in creating a safer, calmer environment for the people residing and working there.” “Our understanding about design and incarceration has evolved significantly since the jails on Rikers Island were built,” says Elizabeth Glazer, director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. The vision for this modern system of jails includes built-in amenities that would be shared with local residents (think exercise facilities, community gardens and art studios). In conjunction with closing Riker’s 10 jails, an independent commission last year recommended the city open smaller facilities - called “justice hubs” - that would be located next to local courts and integrated into existing neighborhoods. Since taking office, his administration has focused on curbing the jail population reducing the use of solitary confinement and easing the transition back to society for the formerly incarcerated. Improving the city’s jails, and especially Rikers - which critics have long charged is inhumane, unsafe and dysfunctional - has been a top-line agenda for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.
And in its place is the possibility of new community jails that are designed, specifically, for better treatment of inmates. Rikers Island, the infamous and isolated jail complex located off the coastline of New York City, is officially being shut down.
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