From Nagle to Now: Developments in Australian Prison Architecture. 24th Annual Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC) Conference “Crime and the regions: from the local to regional, national and international” 28th - 30th September 2011, Geelong, Australia. __________________________________________________________________________________ 1 From Nagle to Now: Australian Prison Architecture in context Elizabeth Grant Abstract Prisons across Australia are extremely diverse. Differing approaches to the design of prisons have developed within the eight State and Territorial jurisdictions in response to specific needs and individual political agendas. Developments in Australian prison design are relatively recent and are directly related to the reforms in corrections occurring in the 1980s, a period commonly termed the ‘Golden Era’ of Australian Corrections. After years of neglect attention was given during this period to rebuilding and redeveloping the dilapidated Dickensian prison estate. While the initial construction of prisons in Australia drew almost exclusively on English prison architecture, redevelopments during the Golden Era emulated architectural concepts and prison and detention developments from the United States. This article will discuss the introduction of unit management, secure perimeter barriers, campus planning, podular design, ‘new’ or ‘third’ generation design and public private partnerships to Australia and the significance of these concepts on contemporary Australian prison design. It will show transporting physical design models without embracing the management, behavioural, social and political theories and conditions that underpin such ‘models’ is problematic. Introduction The post war period saw the general neglect of prisoners’ conditions around Australia. Despite the pressures of post war migration, population increases and numerous government inquiries and Royal Commissions, the necessity of updating the prison estate was largely ignored and prison conditions were generally poor and out of date. With the exception of the initial conception of Canning Vale Prison (Western Australia)(Kerr 1988) and the misguided experiments of Katingal Special Security Unit (New South Wales (See (Nagle 1978; Findlay 1982; Kerr 1988; Dawes 2002) and Jika Jika (Victoria) (Matthews 2006), innovation in Australian prison architecture was at a nadir until the late 1970s. The 1970s was characterised by rising prison populations across Australia and the extension of human rights 1 (see (Challinger 1982; Kerr 1988; Carlton 2007) into prisons (Finnane 1997). Increasing numbers of prisoners placed pressure on ageing infrastructures and prisoner unrest grew due to appalling conditions and out of date operational policies and procedures. The New South Wales Nagle Royal Commission constituted “a watershed” in Australian penal history and “…signified the beginnings of a period of significant reform in Australian prisons” (Brown 2004). In 1978, the release of final report of the Nagle Royal Commission exposed cultures of institutionalised violence against prisoners and recommended over 250 changes to the New South Wales penal system including the upgrade and replacement of prisons and prisoner amenities. 2 1 The level of human rights afforded to prisoners in Australia is questionable. See Brown and Meredith 2002. 2 Nagle called for “a building plan to be drawn up until the year 2000” and “[a]ny replaced gaol to be handed over for public use or destroyed” (Nagle, 1978 p. 25).