NCJ Number
119124
Date Published
1988
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The new generation of correctional institutions developed in Western Australia use new security measures that provide maximum flexibility to accommodate future requirements and that will not compromise the prison in terms of its design or management for some years to come.
Abstract
Both experience in other countries and the authors' research have demonstrated that solid walls and fixed armed tower positions are no longer the most efficient and cost-effective way to ensure a high degree of security. Alternative designs of security installations based on large empty zones, detection systems, and an armed mobile response have been shown to provide better security while reducing the degree of visual intimidation and austere structures like those of the past. The designs rest on the view that the main purpose of the living environment is to minimize the constraints of fixed security to allow a sense of normality to be maintained, as well as to transfer the responsibility for safe custody from the living environment to the perimeter installation. This approach contrasts with past designs, which used excessive physical measures together with procedures involving a high level of regimentation. One example of the new designs is the Campbell Remand Center constructed starting in 1979 in Canning Vale in Western Australia. Other facilities are using similar concepts.