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Book Review: Forms of Constraint: A History of Prison Architecture

Although the literature on correctional institutions is extensive, few studies have focused on prison architecture. In Forms of Constraint, sociologist Norman Johnston explores a frequently overlooked but vitally critical aspect of corrections. Essentially, Johnston is interested in how inmates and the custodial staff have been affected by the physical construction of a prison and to what extent architecture has influenced prison management styles and various correctional programs. Organized chronologically, Forms of Constraint details the evolution of prison architecture from makeshift prisons—castles, chateaux, gatehouses, or fortresses—in ancient China, Egypt, and Greece, to the 21st century. Oddly, it would seem, the first institution in the West to rely upon imprisonment as a disciplinary measure was the Catholic Church. Because the Church prohibited the death penalty or other punishments that physically mutilated the body, the monastery functioned as an institution where social isolation was imposed as a sanction for minor offenses. In what may have been a precedent for later American prisons, St. John Climacus recalled in the sixth century how a monk was sentenced to a church prison or “house of penitents” and not released until there was evidence of a divine pardon (p. 21). One legacy of the early church prison architecture was the cellular design, introduced in the United States in the 1820s at Pennsylvania’s Western State Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. One of the best examples demonstrating the importance of architecture and how it facilitated or inhibited the legislative and philosophical objectives of incarceration was the design of Western State. Opened in 1826, prison officials originally intended for Western to function as a facility built on the principle of solitary confinement without labor. Three years later, however, when the policy fell short of expectations, the state legislature changed the policy to imprisonment in solitary confinement with labor. But as Johnston points out, small and poorly lighted and ventilated cells were not conducive to labor and necessitated the movement of inmates to other areas of the prison. Guards were at a disadvantage in the cell blocks because inmates knew they were approaching by the sound of their steps on the gravel walks in the corridors. Realizing the design of the physical plant was inappropriate for what legislators wanted to achieve, by 1836, administrators had arranged to have cells torn down and new, larger cells built that would accommodate workshops. During the last quarter of the 18th century, penal reforms influenced by Enlightenment rationalism began to view the prison as a multifunction institution. As a consequence, architects influenced by the concept of architecture parlante, or a concern for the appearance of public space, designed prisons that reflected a more humanitarian facility. The architects also faced additional challenges when reformers expected