NOT SHUT UP

by Allan Brodie, Jane Croom & James O. Davies
English Heritage/ HM Prison Service

This is a slim but large format book, with a great deal of illustrations. It takes us through early history relatively quickly; the focus is on development in prison design from the 1960′s till the present. Any reader might be surprised to see the interiors on view (so neat and clean, so drenched in light) and to see such elegantly photographed buildings too. The accompanying text is thorough rather than elegant – in fact, it’s a wee bit plodding – but there’s much carefully recorded detail here for people wanting to learn more about such a specialised yet emotive area of building design. To a more general reader, the book may surprise – and I hope, gladden. The evidence is clearly here that architects for some years now have been genuinely attempting to make prisons as pleasant as they can within the requirements of security: there is information here about the refurbishment of existing prisons as well as the design and building of new ones. These are important points to make to the general public.

So I welcome this book – but I have two worries about it. Firstly, it is not just an objective look at architecture. To quote from the Preface: “Architecture is about buildings but it is also about people – those who live in it and those who work in it.” In furtherance of this idea, we find short sections near the end of the book with titles like The Staff and The Inmates with a chatty piece about these people presented in a warmly positive light. I’m reminded of those brochures telling my children what a particular university will be like – but told by the university.  This book is partly financed by the Prison Service and it’s designed to deliver a message. The good part of that message is that prisoners are not all monsters and the staff in charge are not all sadists, but we’re also being subtly persuaded that all is well with the prison system of this country. Hence all that “drenching with light.”

Secondly, I wish the book didn’t make an underlying assumption that prisons are for other people. Prisons aren’t exotic; they shouldn’t be “a hidden world” (to quote the back cover blurb) A prison is an institution in our society much as a hospital is, and the more we try to embrace that view of the buildings described here the better. We might work in one or we might not; we might find ourselves locked up in one or we might not. You’d be surprised by the variety of people I spend my time with.

NOTE: I wrote this review WORLD OF INTERIORS while I was working as a Writer in HMP Brixton in 1999. My apologies for it not being by a prisoner, but having dug it out now, I think it has one or two useful points to make, and so here it is.

Hugh Stoddart
Managing Editor