Abstract
The mass incarceration of Indigenous peoples is a worldwide phenomenon. Disproportionately, high numbers of Indigenous people are confined in prisons. The growing number of Indigenous people in prison systems and their treatment is deeply distressing as, simply put, the experience of prison causes immeasurable suffering and damage to individuals, families and communities. This chapter discusses the design of prisons for Indigenous prisoners in the USA and Canada. It argues that designing congruent environments for Indigenous peoples may not be enough while criminal justice agencies continue to operate under punitive agendas. It recommends that human rights instruments should be translated into prison design and Indigenous people and communities be given cultural agency in prison design and planning processes, as well as their management and operation.
The original version of this chapter was revised: Author biography has been updated. The erratum to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6904-8_35
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22 September 2018
An erratum has been published.
Notes
- 1.
Grant writes:
Terminology for various types of closed institutions within the literature varies. The USA uses the term jail ’ to refer to a penal institution where people are held pending further investigation or awaiting trial. The terms ‘prisons ’ and ‘penitentiary ’ refer to a facility housing prisoners with sentences over one year. The Canadian Prison System has Federal and State penitentiaries.‘ State Penitentiaries’ house prisoners serving sentences of less than two years while ‘Federal Penitentiaries’ refer to facilities housing prisoners serving longer sentences (Grant 2008: 17).
In this chapter, the term ‘prison ’ will be used as a generic term to refer to all institutions that hold people sentenced to custody but excludes police custody.
- 2.
In most countries with histories of colonisation (especially, Australia , Canada and the USA ), Indigenous peoples were criminalised for the practice of their culture with most aspects of their lives controlled by government. Simultaneously, legislation was enacted so that imprisonment could be used as a method of dispossessing people from their traditional lands and acquiring their resources.
- 3.
Richland and Deer write:
Restorative principles refer to the mending process for renewal of damaged personal and communal relationships. The victim is the focal point, and the goal is to heal and renew the victim's physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual wellbeing . It also involves deliberate acts by the offender to regain dignity and trust, and to return to a healthy physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual state. These are necessary for the offender and victim to save face and to restore personal and communal harmony (2015: 330).
- 4.
Melton states:
Restorative principles refer to the process of making things right for oneself and those affected by the offender's behaviour. To repair relationships, it is essential for the offender to make amends through apology, asking forgiveness, making restitution, and engaging in acts that demonstrate a sincere desire to make things right. The communal aspect allows for crime to be viewed as a natural human error that requires corrective intervention by families and [E]lders and …leaders. Thus, offenders remain an integral part of the community because of their important role in defining the boundaries of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour and the consequences associated with misconduct (2005: 181).
- 5.
Barker ’s ‘behaviour setting’ theory examines the interplay between environmental attributes (such as spatial behaviour, physical boundaries, structures, meanings and controls) and settings to fulfil human needs (for more recent discussions of the behaviour setting see Memmott 2018).
- 6.
There have been no post-occupancy evaluations to assess the success of such approaches.
- 7.
- 8.
The US census uses self-identification to means of measuring people as Native North American, Aleut or Inuit –Yupik peoples.
- 9.
A number of states in the USA do not record the ethnicity of prisoners.
- 10.
The US Department of the Interior Indian Affairs note:
A federal Indian reservation is an area of land reserved for a tribe or tribes under treaty or other agreement with the USA, executive order, or federal statute or administrative action as permanent tribal homelands, and where the federal government holds title to the land in trust on behalf of the tribe. Approximately 56.2 million acres are held in trust by the USA for various Indian tribes and individuals. There are approximately 326 Indian land areas in the USA administered as federal Indian reservations (i.e. reservations, pueblos , rancherias , missions , villages , communities, etc.). …Some reservations are the remnants of a tribe’s original land base. Others were created by the federal government for the resettling of Indian people forcibly relocated from their homelands. Not every federally recognized tribe has a reservation (2017).
- 11.
There has been criticism that some of the new tribal justice centres were built larger than required. In particular, it is stated that the tribal jails at Tuba City and Kayenta (Arizona ) were constructed with capacities at least 250 per cent higher than needed. In Tuba City, NDPS constructed a 132-bed corrections facility, although the 2007 master plan called for building a 48-bed prisons . In Kayenta, an 80-bed corrections facility was built although the master plan stated a need for a 32-bed facility (US Department of Justice 2015). The size of both facilities had created increased operational and staffing costs.
- 12.
The Medicine Wheel symbolises the balance between mind, body, emotion and spirit. The centre is the spiritual axis of the four cardinal points. In many Native American cultures its’ meaning stresses the importance of unity, reciprocity and social interaction.
- 13.
As the focus of this chapter is on prisons , the detail of the design of other areas of the justice centres, such as the courtrooms, etc., is not included.
- 14.
Sweat lodges are a salient feature of some Native North American cultures. The structures are constructed with a rounded roof and a single entryway facing either west or east. The dome-like shape of sweat lodges which is pervasive across a number of Native North American Nations is intricately and uniquely significant for different communities.
- 15.
‘Podular’ is the term used to describe design of prisoner housing units that employs direct supervision to manage prisoners (Atlas 1989). Staff are stationed inside the housing units (rather than separated by security barriers), and the institution is broken into self-contained units with cells configured around a multi-use day room (Farbstein 1989; Farbstein et al. 1996).
- 16.
This aspect is unclear from the literature. The short sentences may suggest that the jails are operating as sobering up centres, or that people are being transferred to other facilities due to the severity of their offence. Using the jails as sobering up or detox centres is concerning as they are not designed for therapeutic purposes. If prisoners are transferred, one may conjecture that it may be in the best interests of the prisoner to keep them close to home and family.
- 17.
The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (2000).
- 18.
It is commonly held view that the available statistics are underestimated. Ethnicity is determined by self-identification, and there is a contentious issue of distinguishing between Status and non-Status First Nations , Métis and Inuit offenders.
- 19.
There is a great diversity between Aboriginal cultures and ceremonies . Waldram suggests that in the prison context, people have had to accept that “…a form of pan-Indianism exists, in which all Aboriginal spirituality traditions are fundamentally the same, …and prison Elders …have been forced to enhance the common themes and discredit the significance of the differences as a means of establishing the common mythical base for spiritual healing to occur” (1993: 335).
- 20.
Sections 79 to 84 of the CCRA deal Correctional Service Canada ’s obligations in Aboriginal corrections, discussing the needs of Aboriginal prisoners, including the implementation of programs, agreements, and parole plans, the establishment of advisory committees and Aboriginal prisoners’ access to spiritual leaders and Elders to address the needs of Aboriginal prisoners. Section 81 states that Correctional Service Canada (CSC) may enter into an agreement with an Aboriginal community for the provision of correctional services to Aboriginal offenders.
- 21.
Healing lodges operate under two different models. The lodges are either funded and operated by Correctional Service Canada or funded by CSC and managed by a partner organisation under a Section 81 agreement.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Associate Professor Lorana Bartels for her useful commentary on this chapter. Transdisciplinary work with Professor Bronwyn Naylor and Dr Rohan Lulham has enabled me to develop greater understandings of the human rights and psychological aspects of imprisonment. I would like to thank them for their willingness to work enthusiastically and collegially on this topic.
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Grant, E. (2018). The Forced Imposition of Architecture: Prison Design for Indigenous Peoples in the USA and Canada. In: Grant, E., Greenop, K., Refiti, A., Glenn, D. (eds) The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6904-8_32
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