The Future of Facility Planning: Searching for New Solutions
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John Cain, AIA, is design director at Venture Architects in Milwaukee, a firm specializing in justice facility planning and design. For eight years he has been a member of-and recently was chair of-the AIA’s Committee on Architecture for Justice. He is responsible for developing a new AIA Justice Systems Facilities Design Resource File. |
Joe De Patta: Can you tell us about your background and experience?
John Cain: I am a partner with a firm called Venture Architects in Milwaukee, Wis. Venture Architects has been in business for 17 years and has been focusing on the justice facility market, primarily in the Midwest. The firm is actually a joint venture between two large, Milwaukee-based architectural firms, Kahler Slater and Zimmerman Design Group. Both firms combined forces to go after large-scale projects. We evolved a very specialized practice out of the joint venture, focusing on justice facility projects.
I’ve been with the organization for its entire 17 years. I started out primarily as a lead designer and worked on a variety of projects. Probably the most notable is the $100 million Milwaukee County Jail and Criminal Justice Facility. More recently my involvement has moved almost 100 percent toward business development in the markets in which we practice.
My educational background consists of architectural degrees from both the University of Illinois in Champaign and the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. I also am the retired Chair of the Committee on Architecture for Justice advisory group. That position was a yearly appointment.
JD: What is the Committee on Architecture for Justice and what is the committee’s mission?
JC: The CAJ, as we refer to it, is one of 22 professional interest areas (PIA) that were established by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The specific structure we work in, the PIA structure, is about seven or eight years old. However, the CAJ has been around for maybe 30 years and is probably one of the oldest PIA’s besides design and healthcare. It began to fill a void that a number of practicing architects around the country thought needed filling. It brings together all the players within the justice industry-not only architects, planners, and designers but also facility operators, wardens, and correctional secretaries-across state and federal government jurisdictions. That focus has remained pretty consistent for 30 years and I am proud of the involvement I had in continuing that long and rich tradition.
The organization is structured in a way that facilitates the collection and distribution of knowledge within the justice field and serves as liaison between professionals such as architects and planners and the industry, not only the agencies for whom we work. I think we play a key role in orchestrating a lot of the dialogue that goes on among these different people. When hearing about the committee, what people mostly think of is the annual Justice Facilities Review publication; it comes out on an annual basis and is affectionately referred to as the “red book.” There are 26 issues now and we have all of them in our office. The publication consists of an annual review and evaluation of project submittals within all justice markets, from jails and prisons to law enforcement centers and court facilities in federal, state, county, and local areas. It is held in very high regard and every year we give out citations and awards and the people that receive them are quite proud.
JD: How many people are on the CAJ advisory board and who makes up the membership? What has your role been?
JC: We have more than seven hundred members, I believe. The majority of members are practicing architects and planners and we have some honorary members from the justice and correctional industries. Most are AIA members. That’s not to say that other programs and activities we host don’t attract many of our clients and people within the industry. For example, this past October we had a three-day conference in Charlotte, N.C. on the topic of multi-use facilities and, this coming October, we have the International Courthouse Conference in Phoenix at the Arizona Biltmore. Both have attracted and will continue to attract people throughout the industry.
My role as the past chair has been quite challenging. I think that continuing the traditions of the organization was very much on my agenda as well as the development of new leadership. I think we accomplished both this last year.
JD: Have the methods of facility planning changed much in the last few decades?
JC: In many respects, planning processes are fundamentally the same with a strong tendency to incorporate users in the process. This is an operations-based process and that continues to be the case. The operations may change but the process is still the same. That is something I learned after years of being involved in the market.
Also, there is the ongoing concern for planning issues relating to safety, security, and staffing efficiency. Those things have been with us from the very beginning. A concept developed by the federal government called “direct supervision” is 25 or 30 years old and is still on the minds of many of the justice planners who try to continue to apply those types of principles to the facilities. While I say the planning process has not changed, the issues have certainly changed. There is no question about that.
JD: Can you explain “direct supervision” and how it applies to facility planning?
JC: Direct supervision is really an operational philosophy that has design of physical facility ramifications. It is found primarily in housing units where the officer in charge is, instead of being separated from the inmates, directly in the environment and housing area. The officer works the station, the desk is in the center of the day room area, and there is direct interaction between the inmate and the officer.
The officer becomes the manager of the inmates; he manages their activities and gets an understanding of what is going on in the housing pods, improving security for both inmates and staff. This situation has huge implications on the level of professionalism that the staff needs to maintain. This is not Andy’s Mayberry, but neither is it the “lock them up and throw away the key” method of baby-sitting. The officer is much more involved in the lives of the inmates.
The implication from a physical point of view is that you can do direct supervision in any facility, but the physical setting must reinforce the principles of direct supervision in terms of the officer being able to see what is going on; staff cannot be behind bars or glass. There are many successful examples of this system throughout the United States.
JD: What are some of the current issues affecting facility planning?
JC: The first thing that occurs to me, and something I’ve been seeing during the last ten years, is what I call a pendulum of attitude that swings back and forth. Back in the late 80s and early 90s when I was in the middle of my career, there was a lot of talk about restorative environments and direct supervision. A desire, if you will, to humanize the prison environment. As the 90s wore on, there became much more of the attitude “just lock them up.” The facilities that we designed started taking on a much harder appearance.
As we now put the 90s behind us, I sense we are probably not going to move back to the 80s when we were accused of building “country club prisons,” which I don’t think was the case, but there is a strong resurgence for the need for education and programming and inmate accountability. I am hearing that from many of my clients.
JD: In this instance, what do you mean by “inmate accountability?”
JC: The average inmate is going to be released at some point-he/she won’t be locked up for the rest of their life. But what happens after their release?
We experience a sort of backlash. Whereas in the late 80s when the pendulum swung more toward a “lock them up” attitude and citizens called their state legislators who got involved and turned what they were hearing into policy, the public is now seeing these people getting out of prison with no skills and are asking, “what is going on inside, what is being done in prison to make these people better citizens?” I sense, at a state level, a renewed commitment to training and skills learning for inmates.
Other issues that come to mind include what we in the AIA have categorized as “specialized populations,” such as AIDS patients, aging inmates, and inmates with medical needs. Issues that are, more than ever, driving programming and the types of facilities that are being designed.
There also is the issue of multi-use, multi-jurisdictional, multi-funding. Dollars are hard to come by. Counties and states are beginning to share resources and are funding facilities for multiple uses. We are seeing counties and states working together to build a facility that will serve the needs of both jurisdictions. Issues of regionalism are certainly prevalent. There are excellent models, such as the Commonwealth of Virginia and the regional jails there.
JD: Can you tell me about any major projects in which you’ve been involved? Anything of which you are particularly proud?
JC: Without question the project I referred to earlier, the Milwaukee County Jail and Criminal Justice Facility here in Wisconsin. That meant the most to me.
It’s a very large downtown high-rise urban jail; a direct supervision facility. It’s been in operation for eight years. As evidence of the principles of direct supervision it has held up incredibly well, in spite of overcrowding and other issues associated with the project.
JD: What is unique about the design of that facility?
JC: It was completed in 1993 and designed for 800 inmates but probably has 1,100-1,200 inmates now. This building is in the downtown center of Milwaukee and is part of a government complex. We had a civic responsibility to design it so that it did not look like a prison. It doesn’t look like an office building either, but fits in very well with the other historic buildings that make up the governmental complex-to the point that the AIA, Wisconsin chapter, gave it an honor award about five years ago. When you are competing against homes and little boutiques and things like that, that award says a lot about the design. I am quite proud of the project.
JD: What recent challenges have you faced?
JC: The whole aspect of staying fresh and raising the bar. Looking for improvement. Due to the conservative nature of our industry, I think that there is a similarity among design, which makes sense. But, I like to be able to introduce new ideas.
The other challenge for many of us who are in our late forties and have been in the industry for a measurable amount of time is that we are seeing the passing of the baton to different generations; the people who taught me this profession are retiring. People such as John McGough, a planner from Spokane, Wash. who was instrumental in my career as well as the careers of many people who now are working for major justice firms across the country. He had a major influence on the industry. My generation, his students, is now looking for the next generation of leaders to step up to the plate, but we are not seeing that.
From a personal point of view, I wonder how we’ll bring that next generation up. Within our CAJ advisory group-and at the firm-we talk a lot about that.
JD: Why aren’t you seeing new faces in your branch of the industry?
JC: That’s a difficult question. There was a recession, at least within the architectural world, about 10 or 15 years ago and there weren’t many opportunities to practice.
We’ve now been living in the last five, six, or seven years with incredible prosperity within the United States and I think that most architects are not drawn by the desire to design prisons and jails. There is reluctance within the next generation to pick up the torch.
This is the main challenge to the firm, to find qualified and interested staff to continue the practice. Also, as we look at the numbers in inmate populations, we wonder if the growth is leveling off. This has been a boom industry for many years and has been an entity all to itself in terms of architects and companies who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in this industry. Strictly from a business point of view, we wonder if that is going to continue. I think there is a question of where the industry currently stands. Correctional News is right in the heart of that whole industry.
JD: Are there any particular problems, challenges or situations that you can tell us about? Have you formulated solutions to any specific issues?
JC: A couple of years ago in the state of Iowa we had a situation I thought was very interesting. It may apply to the whole question of education for inmates as well. We had completed a medium-security prison called Fort Dodge Correctional Facility in Fort Dodge, Iowa. There was space left within the fence for another two housing units. The state legislature gave the department additional funds but not enough to actually build those two units.
We worked with the construction manager and the DOC and ended up with a building that met all program requirements as far as the number of beds, etc., but to make it work financially, a lot of the work on the interior of the building was done by inmate labor. I think it was an interesting experience and the building has worked marvelously.
JD: How did inmate labor affect the construction methods?
JC: Well, for example, a lot of the other buildings had been done with modular and pre-cast concrete and you can’t really use inmate labor to create and install huge pieces of concrete. Pre-cast is made in a factory and brought to the site. The technology isn’t there.
We did some research and came up with technology the inmates could use so they could become involved in construction. We did things that were different. We put metal sheets between the sheet rock, and did some things to beef up the construction. The building has worked out great. I spoke with the director of corrections and the secretary back in December and they are very pleased. They had limited financial resources, we used a lot of inmate labor, and we consider it quite a success.
JD: What do you see as the future of Justice planning?
JC: I don’t think that the growth of the 90s is going to continue in the same way. We have an ongoing need to bring fresh and new ideas to the market. I said that direct supervision had a huge implication on both operations and facility designs and really infused the industry with excitement. Everybody knows about it. What is the new ” direct supervision” concept? I don’t know if there is one out there at this point.
JD: In your opinion, what can members of the industry do to help solve some of those problems?
JC: Perhaps we all need to go into a think tank somewhere and start coming up with new ideas. One of the reasons for our seminars and conferences is to bring groups together in a common location and answer those questions.