Can Architects Help End Solitary Confinement?

Solitary Watch, October 7, 2021: Can Architects Help End Solitary Confinement?

“Architects invested in human rights have long been concerned with the ethos and effects of the American criminal justice system—and with their profession’s role in designing torture sites. In 2013, Raphael Sperry, an architect and the president of the nonprofit Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR), began a campaign to pressure the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to alter its Code of Ethics. His goal was to bar AIA members from designing execution chambers and solitary confinement cells. Last December, the campaign finally succeeded, placing one more roadblock in the way of jurisdictions intent on locking people up in conditions that amount to torture.”

Additional reading:

Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR)

The New York Times, December 11, 2020: Prominent Architects Group Prohibits Design of Death Chambers