How we design prisons and where we choose to build them says a lot about what we think of the people on the inside.
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In almost all ways, the Liberty Hotel in Boston is like any other swanky hotel. It hosts galas, weddings, and New Year’s Eve parties. It has weekly events like “Fashionably LATE Thursdays” — a show in the lobby that features “a who’s who of Boston’s fashion elite” — and “beat weekends,” where local DJs perform on Friday and Saturday nights. It’s a hotel, in other words, that strives to be a place where local residents can go to see and be seen.
But there’s one thing about the Liberty Hotel that’s markedly different from its peers: Not too long ago, it was a prison.
Until 1990, when it was still operating as the Charles Street Jail, it was a building that most people wanted to avoid. It was in disrepair and overcrowded, so much so that a US district court once declared that it violated people’s constitutional rights.
The hotel leans into that history — sometimes uncomfortably so. The place that once jailed suffragists and civil rights activists now boasts restaurants with names like “Clink” and “Alibi.” It relishes “playful nods to [its] infamous past” with decorations that include old keys. “Don’t worry, these days, the doors lock from the inside only,” its website reads. “But with rooms this luxurious, we can’t guarantee that you’ll ever want to leave.”
That transformation from jailhouse to hotel fundamentally changed how people interacted with the building. It also uncovered an uncomfortable truth: Prisons and jails don’t fit into their surrounding neighborhoods. As a hotel, the former Charles Street Jail draws in crowds; as a jail, it repelled passersby, who probably tried their best to ignore its existence.
What our prisons look like says a lot about how we think about crime and punishment, what we think about prisoners, and how we like to think of our own society.
That’s never going to change. Prisons will always be a place that people would rather not think about, and residents will likely protest anytime one gets built in their neighborhood. So, as long as prisons and jails continue to exist, architects and urban planners must face the question of what a prison should look like. Should it be tucked away or built on an island like Rikers or Alcatraz? If it’s in an urban neighborhood, should it be made invisible by blending into its surroundings, or should it stand out to send a message about criminal justice?
These questions aren’t just hypothetical. A few months ago, city officials in Washington, DC, released renderings for a new jail that’s meant to replace the city’s current, crumbling correctional facility. A senior vice president of the design firm hired by the city was frank with their intent. “The community doesn’t want to see a jail,” she said in a public meeting in November. With that in mind, they put together a design that would fit into the surrounding neighborhood.
The proposal — which included steel panels obscuring a glass exterior — drew mixed reactions, according to the . Some noted that it’s clear the designers were trying to create a welcoming environment that offered, at the very least, a dignified experience for those unfortunate enough to go through its doors. Others pointed out that, despite the designers’ efforts, it still looked somewhat menacing. “It presents as a cage,” said one member of the US Commission of Fine Arts, one of the bodies responsible for approving the project.
Ultimately, what a prison looks like on the outside has seemingly little to do with the conditions on the inside. But questions of design get at something deeper: What our prisons look like says a lot about how we think about crime and punishment, what we think about prisoners, and how we like to think of our own society. The prison architect’s dilemma
Many factors contribute to what a prison ends up looking like — including city planning, community input, and stakeholder needs — but who designs it has the biggest say. The problem for many architects, though, is that while they can influence what a prison looks like inside and out, their job ends there. What happens afterward, within the walls they helped erect, is out of their control. And because the criminal justice system is riddled with injustice — from racial bias to harsh prison conditions — some architects believe that they shouldn’t participate in the system at all.
In 2020, the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) issued a statement discouraging its members from designing places of incarceration until the American justice system is reformed so that the law can be applied without racial bias. “We instead urge our members to shift their efforts towards supporting the creation of new systems, processes, and typologies based on prison reform, alternatives to imprisonment, and restorative justice,” the statement said.
