Technologies in Control: The Architectural Design, Physical Fixtures and Security Arrangements of Supermax Prisons

Prison design reflects penal ideologies, managerial tactics, political discourses, economic considerations, and cultural and social sensitivities, sentiments and insecurities. These discourses ‘enter into construction and… in consequence buildings or planned environments become statements’. The design, in turn, affects discourses and shapes practices: the ‘hardware’ of a prison building, including building materials, colour schemes and surveillance mechanisms, has great impact on the way in which the prison is managed, on the daily experiences of prisoners and prison staff, and on the relationship and interactions between them. In the case of supermax prisons, which are designed to isolate prisoners, the design itself dictates the reality of life to a particularly large extent. This chapter examines the ‘hardware’ of supermax prisons, using Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU) in California and Special Management Unit II (SMU) in Arizona to illustrate design features, considerations and discourses. I enquire whether any one of the discourses identified above (managerial, economic, social, cultural) dominated the design process and considerations, and, if so, how it affected the architectural outcome. It illustrates how the interdependencies between social life and territory, the ‘socio-spatial dialectic’, are manifested in supermax prisons by reconstructing a dual narrative: the silent yet powerful narrative presented by the building itself, and the verbal professional narratives accompanying it.