Should architecture be used for punishment? How might the spaces we inhabit nurture or damage us? How can we begin to start over after the worst has happened?
Criminologist Yvonne Jewkes grapples with these questions every day as the world’s leading expert on rehabilitative prison design; she also faces them in her personal life when her partner of 25 years leaves her in the middle of a nightmare renovation project and then lockdown sees her trapped there.
Used to fighting the punitive prison system to create spaces that encourage reflection, healing, even hope for those incarcerated, she must learn to be similarly compassionate to herself, as she considers what might help someone at the lowest point in their life to rebuild.
There are 11.5 million prisoners worldwide, and most of them will eventually be released back into society. Yvonne asks: ‘Who would you rather have living next door to you? Or sitting on the train next to your daughter? Someone who has been treated with decency in an environment that has helped to heal them and instilled hope for their future? Or someone who has effectively been caged and dehumanised for years?’ Challenging our expectations of what prisons are for, she takes us along their corridors, into cells, communal spaces, visitors’ areas, and staffrooms, to the architects’ studios where they are designed, and even into her own home, to show us the importance of an architecture of hope in the face of despair.
‘A book full of insights to illuminate the way we look at architecture. Jewkes’ beautiful descriptions not only evoke the feel of the air in a space, but also reveal the moral significance of its design. So refreshingly distinctive from other types of prison books — a beautiful meditation on the universal need for sanctuary, what it means when it is taken away from us, and the courage it takes to reclaim it.’
Andy West, author of The Life Inside
‘This deeply vulnerable, beautifully written personal memoir is deftly interwoven with literature, philosophy, and prison architecture; playing with ideas of home, family, imprisonment, and what it means to be free. I found myself thinking about it while on trains, while driving, while writing. It is a triumph.’
Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
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‘A powerful exploration of freedom and confinement, and the spaces we all inhabit. Yvonne Jewkes asks difficult questions about the meaning and purpose of incarceration in the twenty-first century, and what it might be to build an architecture for a more hopeful society. This is a book with no easy answers, but one that invites us to reflect more deeply. Because, on the evidence of the stories Jewkes tells, most of what we think we know about prison is wrong.’
Will Buckingham, author of Hello, Stranger
‘Beautifully written, meticulously researched, this book should be a “must read” for anyone who wants to understand how prisons operate and their impact on people in prison. The personal narrative throughout heightens the reader’s emotional connection with the content and makes this an unputdownable book. Yvonne Jewkes will captivate, enlighten, and intrigue the reader through this perceptive and truthful insight into the purpose of prisons through the lens of design.’
Pia Sinha, Chief Executive, Prison Reform Trust
‘By turns enlightening and enraging, this is both moving memoir and a compelling argument to shift how we think about prison. Life writing at its finest.’
Joanna Nadin, author of The Future of the Self
‘There were many times when I read this lovely book I went yes, yes, yes — that is exactly how I feel about working and researching in prisons. It’s not an academic text — it’s not really about prisons or prisoners — it’s a deeply personal memoir about how prisons get under your skin in often uncomfortable ways.’
Professor Nicholas Hardwick, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales 2010–2016 and Chair Parole Board for England and Wales 2016–2018
‘In this engaging and poignant book, Yvonne Jewkes takes the reader into the hidden world of prisons, revealing how their architecture and design reflects social values and shapes the lives of those who live and work in them. There are uncanny echoes in Jewkes’ own life as an ambitious house renovation founders and the cracks in the foundations of her 25-year relationship are laid bare. She is left rebuilding both a home and her future. In these parallel and intersecting experiences Jewkes invites the reader to consider how the buildings we create and inhabit are an expression of who we are, individually and as a society. A brilliant read that will be a delight and revelation to those who are unfamiliar with prisons as well as those have spent their lives inside.’
Jamie Bennett, former prison governor
