Normal or nurturing: what should prison designers aspire to?
The word ‘normalisation’ has become ubiquitous in discussions of prison reform. At the recent annual conference of the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA) – a six-day gathering attended largely by managers from the private and public sectors, prison planners, architects and (on this occasion, as it was held in London) senior personnel from HMPPS – it seemed that hardly a paper was given without grand claims being made about custodial environments becoming more ‘normalised’ and therefore, it was said, more likely to rehabilitate offenders.