Sociotechnical systems for high rise detention

Abstract

Society deems detention facilities successful when total life cycle cost is minimized without compromising safe, secure, and constitutional incapacitation. However, this consensus view represents only a minor subset of the potential of jails. System boundaries should be expanded, and a much larger set of outcomes considered. This case study of the design of a high-rise jail embodies transdisciplinary exploration of operational integration, architectural design, and engineering disciplines. The resulting 1,200-bed facility will rise 193.5 feet (59 meters) and cost an estimated $1.4 billion dollars. Sociotechnical systems ultimately determine conditions of confinement and the successful administration of justice within facilities that incarcerate. While organizational and detainee culture contribute to the criminogenic | rehabilitative continuum of outcomes, design can rise to the level of organizational culture, psychological drivers, and policies, procedures, and post orders in its potential to influence outcomes. Justice facilities are complex adaptive systems that cannot be directly controlled. We can—at best— influence their evolution, nudging them toward desired goal states.