Rikers Island and L.A. Men's Central: Humanizing "Mega-Jails" in New York and Los Angeles

Rich Wener (Tandon School of Engineering, New York University)
Jay Farbstein (Jay Farbstein & Associates)
Ken Ricci (RicciGreene Architects, PC)
Margaret Castillo (NYC Dept of Design & Construction)
Dana Kaplan (Mayors Office of Criminal Justice)

Jails, for the most part, house persons awaiting arraignment, trial or sentencing. The way that jails function – how long people are detained there, what kinds of services are available to them while they are detained, and how crowded the jail is – is a function of the broader criminal justice system, greatly affected by the nature of criminal laws and their enforcement, and the efficiency of operation of the courts. More judges andspeedier hearings and trials, for instance, can greatly affect time spent and overall jail population.

Changes in these broader systems significantly affect jail operation. When state services for the mentally ill are unavailable, for instance, jails can become of psychiatric services center of last resort. In many cities the population of detainees with serious mentally disorders has significantly increased. Similarly, the percentage of detainees who have committed serious and violent crimes goes up when there are policies to find alternative sites for people without serious offense records.

All these problems are greatly exacerbated in very large jail systems, as one finds in the biggest cities in the country. Two of the largest jail systems in the United States, or, for that matter, in the world, in New York City and Los Angeles, are in the process of planning dramatic changes to reduce the size of their jailed population, and also to improve the quality of the environment. The goals in each are to take old, outmoded and harsh physical environments and replace them with modern and facilities that support humane treatment and provide programs to aid detainees in their post-incarceration lives. In each case the systems are making use of an evidence-based process to create new facilities that are more effective in achieving their goals. While there are these similarities between the large scale projects to change detention facilities in NYC and L.A. there are also significant differences, in systems, context and proposed solutions. This workshop will present discussions of the evidence-based principles that underlie the proposals for changes to both systems, including how the approaches are similar and may differ. Discussions will address the special problems that must be addressed in large scale jails, such as the treatment of those with mental illness, and how these issues affect plans for new facilities. Opportunities for post occupancy research that can assess the success of these new facilities will also be considered.