NCJ Number
191604
Journal
Prison Review International Issue: 1 Dated: July 2001 Pages: 18-22
Date Published
July 2001
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article discusses a new approach to correctional facility planning and design that improves Direct Supervision.
Abstract
Borrowed light is a design and facility planning approach that uses natural light to flood dayrooms and deliver filtered light to cells and other locations in a detention or correctional facility. Borrowed light involves four simple elements: (1) providing individual exercise yards for each dayroom that serves as both security perimeter and dayroom lightwell--each dayroom serves from 48 to 64 beds; (2) flooding the dayrooms with sunlight from large, low-security windows between the dayroom and exercise yard; (3) eliminating expensive exterior cell or dorm windows; and (4) providing larger but less expensive windows between the cell and dayroom that allows cells to "borrow" natural light and views from the dayroom. The King County Regional Justice Center, Kent, WA, has applied "borrowed light" concepts to its design, resulting in changes in management, inmate, and even neighborhood attitudes toward this correctional facility. Figures