SASHA GRISHINA
RECALIBRATORY DISSOLUTION
RIKERS ISLAND // DEPOSITORY - RECIDIVISM Rikers Island, half the size of Central Park, is the heart of New York City's jail system. Before the island housed inmates, it served as a repository for what no one could use — broken boilers, old sofas, garbage, street sweepings and earth from subway excavations. In the modern era, the island has been transformed into a different sort of disposal ground, where society's unwanted humans are dumped – the criminally sentenced - making Rikers a dirty secret of the richest city on earth. It is a depository – a temporary storage space for the unwanted – for detainees who are awaiting trial and cannot obtain bail, and inmates awaiting transfer or serving a short sentence. Sixty-five percent of the island’s released inmates will return within a year; many will be arrested for the same crime which landed them in jail the first time. A huge percentage of those will be arrested the same week (even day) as they are released from Rikers. This recidivism, which is a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior even after experiencing negative consequences of or treatment for it, and habituation become a prominent force and weakness in the city’s jail system. A huge population of Rikers’ inmates become accustomed to the idea of jail as their home- they become institutionalized; jail enforces a structure to their daily lives, something they would have trouble finding on the outside, coming from very low-income and crime-ridden neighborhoods. A study of the penal systems of other states and nations turns out a much lower recidivism rate, primarily due to implementation of mandatory rehabilitation programs. What makes NYC such a different animal? Do we build up with the intention to remove?
RECALIBRATORY DISSOLUTION This idea of removal and dumping, depositing, is what Rikers Island embodies and represents to the city of New York. The island and its institutions are currently a dead end, a solid wall; there is no detour, no remedy. The prevalence of habituation and recidivism in this congested, overcrowded institution reflects the inability for this setup to function the way it was initially intended – to support treatment. This proposal is to attempt to deal with this issue of recidivism within the NYC jail system by dissolving the nucleus that is Rikers and dispersing it throughout the city as a system fully-integrated into the five boroughs, therefore, creating a network of [stoppers] which will help recalibrate and phase out the city’s habitual criminality. A nodal arrangement of constructs off from the site into its urban and natural surroundings will begin to act as a conceptual gradient from the recidivism within Rikers’ crippled penal system into a more integrated life in NYC.
1.03
STATEMENT
CONTENTS 1 INCARCERATION // RECIDIVISM: INTRODUCTION + BACKGROUND
2 RIKERS ISLAND: ISLAND AS CITY + INVERSION
3 RECALIBRATION EXCERCISE: RETRAINING TENSION
4 INTRAURBAN NATURAL HABITATS + PRECEDENTS 5 PROPOSAL: DISSIPATION OF RIKERS INTO INTREGRATED CITY SYSTEM
Each chapter in this book is an important portion of research that makes up the entity of background for this thesis. Structually, each section is pinned further into the spine from the first to the final chapter - from isolation and removal to full integration and entirety. Left-side pages are partially-filled and become more complete with each chapter, adding to the totality of each consecutive section of the book.
CONTENTS
BACKGROUND NYC . $68,000 - amount city spends per inmate per year on Rikers Island . $28,000 - average yearly cost per inmate in the nation. It costs about $17,000 per year to rehabilitate an inmate through a rehab program. . 10 jails on Rikers (one currently not in use - reserved for influx). Separate jails for detainees, sentenced, adolescents, women, HIV/AIDS inmates and those with contagious diseases. . 16,000 inmates on any given day; 66% are detainees (40% of those have bonds of less than $1000), awaiting their court date. Some are serving a sentence of less than a year. . $680 million - yearly budget to run the jail colony. . 48 days - average length of stay on Rikers. . 200,000 - number of inmates passing through Rikers every year. . 415 acres; island quadrupled in size from early 1900s to 1930s from landfilling. . 3,000 - approximate staff on the island daily; sometimes increases to 6,000.
NEW YORK STATE . 90% of NYS prisoners are in upstate facilities. . 7 out of 10 come from NYC. This creates a noticeable shift in government funding + political influence generally to the advantage of rural areas at the price of big cities.
US . 2.1 million - number of people currently incarcerated in the US; ranked 1st in world for incarceration rate. In 1969 there were only 150,000 in prison. Intensified drug laws contributed to sky-rocketing arrest and incarceration rate in the US. . Since 1980, spending on incarceration has risen 571% compared to 33% for K-12 ed.
1.05
NYC JAILS
INDEPENDENCE
B AM HA R RE ROG P
N L ISO ITA PR OSP H
JAIL
MAXIM SECUR UM IT PRISO Y N
ICE POL NTION E DET CO SE MM RV U IC NIT E Y
M DIU Y ME URIT SEC ISON PR
MIN SEC IMU M PRI URIT SO Y N
LESS SECURITY/SEVERITY MORE SECURITY/SEVERITY
MOVEMENT THROUGH CORRECTIONS SYSTEM
E ENIL JUV ON S I PR
RECIDIVISM: (from recidive + ism, from Latin recidīvus "recurring", from re- "back" + cadō "I fall") A tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior; the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behavior. It is also known as the percentage of former prisoners who are rearrested. HABITUATION: [of the inmate] Physiological tolerance to or psychological dependence on drug, short of addiction; reduction of psychological/behavioral response occurring when a specific stimulus occurs repeatedly. INTERMITTENT: Stopping or ceasing for a time; alternately ceasing and beginning again; alternately functioning and not functioning or alternately functioning properly and improperly.
. 68% of inmates will be rearrested 3 years after being released. Nation’s average is 60%. England’s, Australia’s, France’s and Germany’s recidivation rate is 50% due to use of rehab programs. . 83% will be rearrested within 20 years. Causes for such high rates include loss of civil rights (voting, financial aid, etc) which lead to alienation; difficulty in finding a job/apt; being pushed back into the same neighborhood and social/family circle which led to criminality in the first place. 1.07
ORIGIN OF NYC INMATES
RECIDIVISM
REMOVING
BUILDING WITH INTENTION TO REMOVE
DEPOSITING
DISPLACE: v. - to compel (a person or persons) to leave home, country, etc; To move or put out of the usual or proper place; Relocate- to put something in a different place from where it should be. DEPOSITORY: n. - Place is something is deposited- temporary storage; warehouse. REPOSITORY: n. - A place where some thing valuable is stored for safety and/or exhibition; Museum, vault, archive, safe; Abundant source or supply; Person to whom something is entrusted.
DETAINMENT: BROOKLYN JUSTICE MAPPING CENTER REMOVAL // PLUCKING
1.09
TRANSFER OF PRISONERS FROM NYC TO UPSTATE PRISONS
REMOVAL // DISPLACEMENT
black white hispanic asian other
NYC ETHNICITIES
IMPRISONMENT // JAILING PRIS路ON: n. - A place for the confinement of persons in lawful detention, especially persons convicted of crimes; a place or condition of confinement or forcible restraint. Prisons form part of the criminal justice system of a state and only house convicted felons, usually for longer periods of time than jails. [The word prison can be traced back to the Latin word prnsi, "the action or power of making an arrest." This in turn is derived from the verb prehendere or prndere, which meant "to take hold of, take into custody, arrest."]
DETAINMENT // JAILING TO DETAIN: v. - To keep from proceeding; delay or retard; To keep in temporary confinement; JAIL AS HYBRID: Jails are institutions which form part of the criminal justice system of a county and house inmates awaiting trial as well as convicted misdemeanants serving a sentence of a year or less. Rikers is neither a prison, nor free society, a temporary dump for those who are neither here nor there - neither convicted, nor free, on the edge of society.
JAIL: n. - Institution which forms part of the criminal justice system of a county and houses inmates awaiting trial as well as convicted misdemeanants serving a sentence of a year or less. There are no prisons in NYC, only jails and detentions centers.Rikers is neither a prison, nor free society, a temporary dump for those who are neither here nor there - neither convicted, nor free, on the edge of society.
1.11
JAILING
Holding over 15,000 inmates at any given moment, twothirds of them being extremely temporary (detainees), Rikers island as the city’s sole jail system does not work. This notion is reflected in the unbelievably-high percentage of people that return shortly after being released. Of course, social, political and environmental conditions in a dense, urban society such as NYC are much more different from one that characrerizes much of the rest of the world, but nonetheless, action needs to take place to create a more fuctional penal system, carefully calibrated to fit into our diverse society. Currently completely detached from the main organs of the city - both, physically and psychologically - the island is a dumping ground that continually disintegrates people from their habitats with each detainment sentence. It spins the wheels of recidivism and proliferates habituation and institutionalism with every passing hour.
Nothing good comes out of the jails on Rikers save for the few jobs and minimal training some inmates are given during their stay. Being compressed so tightly with no room to breathe or grow only tightens the reins Rikers has on a huge amount of people, intermittently pulling them back into the system and away from any possible progress.
A dissolution of the island’s completely crammed and obstructed system is neccessary. People need to be slowly re-integrated back into thier urban environment and this cannot happen on an island originally intended to be a landfill. While there are presently some (basically) good intentions, the city’s penal system needs to adopt a newer strategy to deal with the problems at hand and the first is to break up the congested nucleus of the prison system into a nodal network within the city.... 1.11 1.13
DISSOLUTION
1.11
DEPOSITORY - CITY As New York City's jail system has grown over the decades, Riker’s Island has become a kind of global village, very precisely organized under a mountain of laws and rules, but also designed to be self-sufficient and self-contained, with grocery stores, schools, medical clinics, ball fields, chapels and mosques, gyms, barbershops, a bakery, laundromats, a power plant (which allows the island to be unaffected by blackouts), a tailor and print shop, a bus depot, car washes, etc.
2.01
Rikers is somewhat of a caged city floating in the East River that most New Yorkers wouldn’t be able to find on a map.
RIKERS ISLAND // DEPOSITORY - CITY
RIKERS BRIDGE
The island is right in the middle of one of the largest and busi// DEPOSITORY - CITY save for the single est cities on RIKERS earth, ISLAND but completely separate, bridge access point stemming from Queens. In this "total institution," this enormous drive for autonomy adds to the isolation; the prison is truly a distant world, set apart, clothed in armor. Access to the island is highly-controlled; movement on and off is only allowed every 8 hours (the length of a shift). These bursts create an unusual, elongated rhythm that evoke notions of the traffic lights throughout the rest of the city.
2.03
RIKERS AS CITY: Contains primary and secondary circulation, structure, infrastructure, and main organs (which are the institutions). Visitors + residents + service are the daily inhabitants; some (the visitors) are very temporary while others (some staff which cannot afford to travel to and from work daily) reside on the island. The island consists of many varying speeds of life - fast, slow, repetitive, and in bursts. ISLAND: Inherently, a small part of a large mainland, but isolated from mainland above water, appearing as two separate entities. Water obscures the connection between mainland and island.
RIKERS CITY // ISLAND
When looking at the circulation pattern of four types of inhabitants of the island - the visitor, detainee, sentenced inmate, and Corrections Officer - we see an interesting inversion...
CITY // ISLAND
circulation: VISITOR
circulation: DETAINEE
circulation: SENTENCED
...The visitor, who inherently has more personal rights andfreedoms than the detainee or inmate,has the most constricted circulatory rights. Because of security, they areallowed to see and access the least of the island, and need to pass through many more security checkpoints.The sentenced inmate, interestingly, has the most access rights on the island of any inhabitant who is not a staff member.This is apparently due to the fact thatthe longer the duration of one’s sentence,the more jobs and responsibilities theycan be given. These men and women are allowed to excercise in the larger yards and work at certain shops and facilities. The detained inmate is neither free nor incarcerated, a “hybrid on the edge of society.” He is not given as many circulatoryfreedoms because he is not the island’s resident.
2.05
RIKERS // INVERSION
circulation: WARDEN
circulation: CO
The COs, staff and wardens have the most rights on the island and are granted accessto majority of its facilities. Status and heirarchy within the employment sectorcertainly still play a big part in determining admittance. Some staff reside on the island permanently; these are individuals who do not have the means to travel to and from their work daily. These people,essentially, also become prisoners of this penal colony, being trapped in its oppressive rhythm. Where does one, therefore, draw the line between freedom and incarceration? circulation:
2.07
VISITOR DETAINEE SENTENCED
RIKERS // INVERSION
“A prison is a monastery inhabited by men who do not choose to be monks.”
MONASTERY
PRISON
MONASTERY
PRISON
The monastery was the model of the self-sufficientprison. All things for consumption were produced inside the walls. The abbot was always the authority of the monastery; he accepted vows of obedience from the monks that entered. mon·as·ter·y [from Church Latin monastērium, from Late Greek monastērion, from Greek monázein to live alone, from monos alone] A house or place of residence occupied by a community of persons, esp. monks, living in seclusion under religious vows. Monks are withdrawn from the world to a life ofpenitence in preparation for the next. Monastic offenders were sent to the isolated cell and their rights to space and air were revoked. The term “murus” was used to call this cell - meaning “a wall,” a room “appropriate for punishment.” Ergastulum - disciplinary cell within the monastery in which forced labor took place.
ABBOT MONK PRISONER
CARTHUSIAN MONASTERY
MONASTERY // ORIGIN OF THE PENITENTIARY
city > neighborhood > holding cell > detention cell block > cell w/ mate > isolated seg unit > holding cage
REMOVAL // I NSTITUTIONALIZATION Process of plucking, isolating from large group to singularity. As an inmate goes through the process of incarceration and institutionalization, his personal space gradually diminishes down to just the size of his body (3’x3’). This, then, becomes the dead end of the system; Rikers, inherently, embodies the dead end of the city’s correctional system, with no way to be effectually reintegrated back into society.
cell block holding cell
city
isolated seg unit
cell block
8’
6’ 50’
50’ 4’
40’
isolated holding cage
60’
22’
8’ 6’
3’
3’
120’
6’
SPACE OF INMATE THROUGH INCARCERATION
INVERSION 2.09
1
2
3
5
A series of performative models were developed to test recidivism and the possibilities of recalibration with wood blocks and tensiondriven wire rods. Five blocks were used, which ranged from 2.5” to .25” wide. Hole layouts ranged from few and very tight (in widest block) to many dispersed (in thinnest block).
3
The purpose of this exercise was to see if and how the intermediate three blocks can “re-train” wire rods which were passed through the various thicknesses. Would the intermediate blocks be able to allow for the widest and thinnest ones to be pushed closer together?
PLAN
3.01
4
LONG SECTION
RECALIBRATION EXERCISE
1+1
1+2
1+5
1+3
1+3+5
1+4
1+5
1+3+4+5
1+2+3+4+5
1+5
What began with an inquiry on how to close up the distance between two very disparate blocks (which pushed away from each other because of their widely-different layouts of drilled holes) ended with a greater understanding of the ideas of “retraining” and “phasing out.” While the three middle blocks did not necessarily allow for the end pieces to come closer together, they did diminishthe force between them which initally pushed the blocks away.
1+3+5
1+3+4+5
3.03
1+2+3+4+5
RECALIBRATION EXERCISE
Another exercise experimented with angling the drilled holes in blocks to understand how blocks will begin to push apart or pull togeter when strung with a metal rod. This excercise was the next step in looking at “training� rods using just angles within the blocks as opposed to between the blocks. If the blocks already have a built-in recalibrating function, this replaces the in-between blocks and allows for more specific control of the metal rods and the tension within the pairs. Inherently, some samples started untwisting and flipping over due to unbearable tension between the blocks.
01
02
Through pulling and pushing the blocks, the space between them compresses, releases and diminishes to a point when the rods cross. While in the first case (01) pushing the blocks together creates a tighter space within the rods, in 02 it did the opposite - the space expanded. This is the result of angling the drilled holes toward the inside of the blocks. The third example is a combination of the two and resulted in the expansion of the left side along with a compression of the right side.
03
3.05
TENSION // REDIRECTION EXERCISE
01
N. BROTHER ISLAND
S. BROTHER ISLAND Just west of Riker’s, lay two islands – North and SouthBrother Island. Both have also had a prominent history/present of “dumping.” After being the home of several mental hospital facilities in the mid-1800s, North Brother Island housed Riverside Hospital, which was constructed there to house those who were ailing from the varied new germs that invaded the city - smallpox, typhoid, TB, measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and polio. It was the site of one of the city’s worst disasters in loss of life when the Steamship General Slocum caught terrible fire and sunk, washing up hundreds of dead bodies onto the shores of the island in 1904. After 1963, the island was deserted and left abandoned to become an endangered bird sanctuary over the next few decades. South Brother island, belonging to Queens and about a third the size of North Brother, was purchased back by the city a few years ago, and is also the current haven for many various species of birds and plants which the urban personality of the city cannot support - a repository for natural species which NYC cannot sustain on its city grounds but which represent the city’s natural depository for the future. Presently closed to the public, the only way to access the islands is by boat. These islands, along with most other park spaces in NYC are aliens within the density of the city - some memories and others a consequense of urban life.
4.01
BROTHER ISLANDS // REPOSITORY
GENERAL SLOCUM DISASTER
SOUTH BROTHER ISLAND
4.03
NORTH BROTHER ISLAND
There exists a similarity between NYC’s Central Park and Rikers Island + The Brother Islands. Just like Rikers, the park was a man-made construction, completely dissimilar to its urban, densesurroundings.
CENTRAL PARK // RESEVOIR
CONSTUCTED NATURAL ISLAND And just like the Bother Islands, Central Park contains a huge part of the city’s natural bird and plant habitats. The now-decommissioned JKO Resevoir covers 106 acres and used to distribute New York City's water supply. It is the main ecological sanctuaries in the Park, housing more than 20 species; a curious inversion - an island within an island. This complete disparity is what attracts people - the green, natural openness pulls people in from the steel city like metal to a magnet; from high concentration to low. Central Part is is the natural nucleus of NYC - the hub of a completely different habitat and experience. 4.05
CENTRAL PARK // RESEVOIR
If we start to think of greenparks in NYC as islands, what can their city patterns and geneology give us to help us understand natural reservoirs and depositories surrounded by such highly-developed urbanism? Some major NYC parks were planned while others were a result of Broadway intersecting with an avenue - Union, Madison, Herald, Columbus circle, etc. One major difference, however, between the two types is that the latter does not house any distinguished natural species that the former does; sure, there is plenty of greenery and natural ground, but these parks (squares, officially) were never meant to exist as an intraurban hub. Being the leftover city space that was turned into an open public park lets it attract mostly people in passing, who are on-the-go and need a minute to pause and reflect. Planned park spaces, however, are another weird creature - they are out of the fast-paced rhythm of the city, acting as island blocks that were plucked out of the city landscape. Each park type brings a different mentality and pace to the neighborhood in which it lies. These distinctions can begin to inform which types of proposed interventions can be properly engaged in each site - fastpaced and smooth, slow-paced , intermittent, and/or immerseful.
NYC PARKS: INTENDED
4.07
NYC PARKS: ALL
NYC PARKS: NON-WATERFRONT
NYC PARKS: BWAY LEFTOVER
NYC: PARK AS ISLAND
WORLD PRISON STATISTICS 10 HIGHEST INCARC. RATES per 100,000: US 738 RUSSIA 611 ST KITS + NEVIS 547 US VIRGIN IS 521 TURKMENISTAN BELIZE 487 CUBA 487 PALAU 478 BRITISH VIRGIN IS 464 BERMUDA 463
CIP // MINNESOTA INCARCERATION RATE: 191 (out of 100,000) (57% Lower than natl. avg) RECIDIVISM RATE: 40% (two-thirds natl. avg) Many studies have shown a correlation between prisoners attending rehabilitation programs while incarcerated and their likelihood of recidivism. Most have no significant results, although, some studies have shown a positive correlation. The findings that have shown significant results are normally boot camp experiments that have aftercare programs for at least four months. Minnesota did a study on criminals who are in prison to see if rehabilitation during incarceration correlates with recidivism using their current CIP. The Challenge Incarceration Program (CIP) was mandated by the legislature in 1992. It is a voluntary program for inmates who meet certain statutory and department requirements. CIP consists of three phases - first is a six-month institutional phase followed by two six-month aftercare phases for a total of eighteen months. The first phase is the “boot camp” phase - inmates hve daily schedules including physical training, manual labor, skills training, drug therapy, and transition planning. The second and third phases are “community phases” - allowing inmtes be in contact with supervisor on a daily basis, while being a full-time employee, keeping curfew, passing random drug and alcohol tests, and doing community service, gadually being allowed more freedoms towards the completion of the program. This study has shown that the CIP program significantly increases the amount of time after a prisoner is let out to commit another crime. It also saves m illions of dollars every year for the state.
RECALIBRATION PRECEDENTS // MINNESOTA
MPRI // MICHIGAN INCARCERATION RATE: 488 (out of 100,000) (5% higher than natl. avg) RECIDIDIVSM RATE: 40% (two-thirds natl. avg) The Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative is a cooperative effort led by the Michigan DOC. The MPRI has proven to reduce recidivism - prior to the program, the return rate for parolees in Michigan was 48% within the first 24 months; return rate for 1,200 MPRI participants was 23%. Phase 1- Getting Ready - Assessment+classification: Measuring the offender's risk, needs, strengths. Adressing them. Phase 2- Going Home - Transition to the community begins approximately 6 months before the offender's target release date. Specific re-entry plans are organized that address housing, employment, addiction and mental illness services. Phase 3- Staying Home - It is the responsibility of the former inmate, human services providers, and the offender's network of community supports and mentors to assure continued success. Includes supervision services, revocation decision making, and discharge and aftercare.
RESOCIALIZATION
RESOCIALIZATION: profound change or transformation of personality arising from being placed within a situation or environment no longer conducive to maintaining a previous identity. It is a sociological concept dealing with the process of mentally and emotionally "re-training" a person so that he or she can operate in an environment other than that which he or she is accustomed to. (Key examples include the process of resocializing new recruits into the military so that they can operate as soldiers (or, in other words, as members of a cohesive unit) and the reverse process, in which those who have become accustomed to such roles return to society after military discharge.)
TOTAL INSTITUTIONS
Goal of total institutions is resocialization which radically alters residents' personalities through deliberate manipulation of their environment. Resocialization is a two-part process. First, the staff of the institution tries to erode the residents' identities and independence. Strategies to erode identities include: - forcing individuals to surrender all personal possessions - get uniform haircuts and wear standardized clothing Independences is eroded by subjecting residents to humiliating/degrading procedures - strip searches, fingerprinting, assigning numbers to replace residents' names. Second part of resocialization process involves the systematic attempt to build a different personality or self. This is generally done through a system of rewards and punishments. The privilege of being allowed to read a book, watch television or make a phone call can be a powerful motivator for conformity. Conformity occurs when individuals change their behaviour to fit in with the expectations of an authority figure or the expectations of the larger group. Resocialization is also evident in individuals who have never been "socialized" in the first place, or who have not been required to behave socially for an extended period of time. Examples include feral children (never socialized) or inmates who have been in solitary confinement.
4.09
RECALIBRATION // TOTAL INSTITUTION
OPEN PRISON // UK HM PRISON SERVICE INCARC. RATE: 148 (OUT OF 100,000) RECIDIVISM RATE: 50% Category D (out of A, B, C, D) prison system in the UK - A penal establishment in which the prisoners are trusted to serve their sentences and so do not need to be locked up, thus extending the range of work and occupation they can safely undertake. An open prison is an informal description applied to any penal establishment in which the prisoners are trusted to serve their sentences with minimal supervision and perimeter security and so do not need to be locked up in prison cells. Prisoners may be permitted to take up employment in the community, returning to the prison. Transfering more trustworthy prisoners and detainees to low-security proves to be of value to the prisoners as well as the state. Less security measures means less money spent on these individuals, and allows them to gradually be re-integrated back intosociety, thus decreasing recidivism rates. The UK’s rate is much lower than that of the US (especially Rikers Island) at 50%.
SEGREGATION UNIT
HOUSING BLOCK
CHAPLAINCY
Usually separate units within prison; each unit has cellular accomodation ranging from single cells to dormi-tories. Includes bath/showers, side offices, serveries.
Provides spiritual care for all. Anglican chaplain responsible for whole team - R.Catholic, Jews, Hindu, Muslims,etc. Usually full-time.
EDUCATION/ TRAINING
RECREATION AREA
Ed/training service available to all prisoners - basic and key skills. In line with KTP set up to reduce re-offending.
Facilities such as TV and pool table rooms, and general open recreational space.
WORKSHOP/GYM Skills taught which count towards prisoner’ NVQs as well as physical training.
RECALIBRATION PRECEDENTS // UK
HEALTHCARE Responsible for health of all prisoners. New admissions to prison are always seen by doctor and their medical history is recorded (drug, alcohol, etc).
RECEPTION
VISITOR’S CENTER
Usually where previsit checks are done. Area where drink/ snacks are bought. “Visitor Order” required to enter.
Responsible for ongoin roll of prison- reception/ discharge.Strip searches of prisoners and prisoner property storage.
GATEHOUSE
OPEN PRISON MODEL
BIODIVERSITY ACTION PLAN // UK HM PRISON SERVICE A Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) is an internationally recognized program addressing threatened species and habitats and is designed to protect and restore biological systems. The United Kingdom Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) is the governmental response to the Convention on Biological Diversity signed in 1992. The Prison Service is responsible for managing the second largest government estate after the Ministry of Defence Estate. A wealth of wildlife lives around individual prison establishments, whether urban or rural, and there are several sites with national or local designations, such as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) on the prison estate. A number of nationally important species are found on the estates, such as dormice, otter and several species of bats.
BIODIVERSITY DUTY The Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act came into force on 1st Oct 2006. Section 40 of the Act requires all public bodies to have regard to biodiversity conservation when carrying out their functions. This is commonly referred to as the ‘biodiversity duty’. The aim of the biodiversity duty is to raise the profile of biodiversity in England and Wales, so that the conservation of biodiversity becomes properly embedded in all relevant policies and decisions made by public authorities.
4.11
RECALIBRATION PRECEDENTS // UK
“Nothing good comes out of the jails on Rikers save for the few jobs and minimal training some inmates are given during their stay. Being compressed so tightly with no room to breathe or grow only tightens the reins Rikers has on a huge amount of people, intermittently pulling them back into the system and away from any possible progress.�
5.01
RECALIBRATORY INTERVENTIONS // DISSOLUTION
3 1
1
4
2
2
RECALIBRATORY INTERVENTIONS // DISSOLUTION
3
4
dis·in·te·grate –verb (used without object) 1. to separate into parts or lose intactness or solidness; break up; deteriorate: The old book is gradually disintegrating with age. 2. Physics: a.to decay. b.(of a nucleus) to change into one or more different nuclei after being bombarded by high-energy particles, as alpha particles or gamma rays. 3. to reduce to particles, fragments, or parts; break up or destroy the cohesion of.
“A dissolution of the island’s completely crammed and obstructed system is neccessary. People need to be slowly re-integrated back into thier urban environment and this cannot happen on an island originally intended to be a landfill. While there are presently some (basically) good intentions, the city’s penal system needs to adopt a newer strategy to deal with the problems at hand and the first is to break up the congested nucleus of the prison system into a nodal network within the city...” ... The second is to sift and re-destribute the workings of the jails into a network-type array throughout the city, sometimes concentrated within more criminally-prone neighborhoods.
dis·so·lu·tion –noun 1.the act or process of resolving or dissolving into parts or elements. 2.the undoing or breaking of a bond, tie, union, partnership, etc. 3.the breaking up of an assembly or organization; dismissal; dispersal. re·cal·i·brate –verb re + adapt; adjust; renovate; revise; rectify
The main intention of this dispersal and reintegration is to slow down (if not halt) the process of inmate/criminal habituation within the monster of the jail. There is a great force of tension involved between Rikers Island and the people which pass through it continually - they are habituated and institutionalized.
Rikers Island will never work the way it is intended if it remains in the state at which it is today - the tension must be snipped between it and its “customers,” the congealed system dissolved into manageable components... and this is what this proposal is about
re·in·te·grate –verb (used with object) 1. to bring together or incorporate (parts) into a whole. 2. to make up, combine, or complete to produce a whole or a larger unit, as parts do; to unite or combine. 4. to give or cause to give equal opportunity and consideration to : to integrate minority groups in the school system.
5.03
Siting for such re-integrative interventions is crucial and perhaps the best option is to follow suit with the research in Section 4 of this book - the city’s natural habitats, whether original or manmade. NYC has a very interesting history and array of intra-urban natural spaces, and a partnership between them and its penal rehabilitation network in the city will prove to be fruitful.
RECALIBRATORY INTERVENTIONS // DISSOLUTION
STAGE 1 // DRUG/ALCOHOL REHAB CENTERS Stoic, steady, fixed . Input/output - plugging in
zaha hadid/cma cgm hq
STAGE 2 // EMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE Fluid, dispersing, infiltrating Boundary-less, seeping, seeking
3deluxe/fluid pavilion
STAGE 3 // YOUTH EDUCATION/PARTNERSHIP Tying, absorbing, interconnecting, strengthening. Mobile, boundary-less
zaha hadid/rome
DRUG/ALCOHOL REHAB CENTERS The underlying issue which causes most inmates on Rikers Island to commit crimes is their drug and/or alcohol addiction. In many cases, robberies, shootings, stabbings, etc are commited to attain funds or status to purchase substances; in most other cases, the arrest was made for buying/selling which also stems from an addictive type of behavior. The first step in resocializing these people is to attack their subconscious forces which keep them addicted to substances. Rehabilitation centers near Rikers will be the primary step from jail into society. These centers will also include bootcamp-type mandatory activities and operations. EMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE Those who participate in prison education, vocation and work programs have better odds of staying out of jail, but a critical and often difficult first step is getting a job. With a continuous income, however small it may be, released criminals will have a stronger sense of stability and will reduce their risk of commiting a crime due to insufficient funds to live. Setting up placement and training facilities with live-in quarters closer to the individual’s home neighborhood (but not directly in it) will attempt to tackle this second issue. YOUTH EDUCATION AND PARTNERSHIP It has been proved that a close brother- and sister-type relationship between an adult and adolescent has beneficial effects on both parties. When the youth depends on and looks up to an older individual, the adult tends to act more responsibly. After careful screening and approvement, each individual will be partnered up with a child in their own neighborhood (who will have signed up for this program) and will be responsible for the adolescent’s staff-monitored afterschool activities and support. Gradually, with proof of the partners’ improvement, perhaps the team will be given more independence and trust. This will take place close to the criminal’s residence, another step into reintegration. Each stage is sited closer to and deeper into the criminal’s home neighborhood. This creates a gradual transition mentally and physically back into society and a healthier, more stable lifestyle. We can plan space but we cannot plan people. The problem at hand is recalibrating psychological issues and we need to design and set up an architectural, programatic system to be the vehicle which administers the socio-psycological reallignment.
RECALIBRATORY STAGES // TYPES
SASHA GRISHINA
RECALIBRATORY DISSOLUTION