Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:06 Hello, and welcome to failed architecture breeze block, where our editors share their thoughts on works and progress. Urgent matters, and current happenings in architecture and S spatial politics. My name is Kristin who, and I'm an editor on failed. Architecture's New York city team, and I'm here with Maggie Luna, Avalon Betz, Gaston, and Sahi James who have been organizing against the building of prisons.
Speaker 2 00:00:32 Hi, I'm Maggie Luna. I am in Texas. I work with the statewide leadership council. I am a community outreach coordinator and lead organizer for formerly incarcerated people and advocates in Texas.
Speaker 3 00:00:46 Hi, thanks for having me. My name is Avalon bat Gaston. I am the project manager for the Illinois Alliance for reentry injustice. Um, obviously we're out of Illinois <laugh> and, um, we're coalition of, uh, directly impacted people, service providers, stakeholders, and, um, allies all United to remaking, um, the criminal legal system. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 00:01:09 Hi, I'm Sashi James, and I'm a families for just us healing and the national council for incarcerated, formerly incarcerated women and girls. I am a daughter of formerly incarcerated parents and I'm the reimagining communities director, um, based in Massachusetts when I'm from New York <laugh> and I'm really excited to be here. And thank you for giving us this
Speaker 1 00:01:32 Possible. Awesome. Just to kind of kick off our conversation, given intro to the folks who are listening in, basically on June 24th, the national council for incarcerated, formally incarcerating women and girls, families for justices healing, lion ness, uh, justice impacted women's Alliance designed as protests, statewide leadership council and Illinois Alliance for reentry and justice organized and action outside of HDR's office in Chicago, which was the same day actually as the AIA conference, AIA is the American Institute of architects. Uh, they were demanding that this international architecture, engineering and planning firm stopped designing prisons for which they've designed over, uh, 275. So just to kind of kick off our, uh, questions here, you know, direct this directly to Sashi who has been lead organizer for this effort, but since the action, have you been able to meet with HDR leadership at all?
Speaker 4 00:02:28 No. We have not heard anything from the HDR leadership team. And I just wanted to also say that the, um, standout that we had was one of many, um, standouts. We have came to their front door many times in Massachusetts. We were, we actually organized about a two month standout in front of their, uh, office right downtown. And we never heard anything then, and we still haven't heard anything now. Um, and this is multiple times that we've actually met them where they're at. Um, so it's disappointing as a community organizer.
Speaker 3 00:03:04 I mean, I, I I'd like to jump in, I feel like them being unresponsive to our invitation, to work with us, to design things that our communities need. Um, and the last thing that we need are more jails and prisons, um, because those have only really produced more harm in the communities that have been disproportionately affected by the building of jails and prisons. Right. Um, and so this has been an open invitation to begin to discuss what different looks like, how can we actually work together in concert to build, um, communities up and not prisons, right. And not jails. And so we can't stop, right? Like this, this campaign, this project, this effort can't stop because we are really talking about lives and Liberty of actual human beings, right? So the importance of the stopping of designing and buildings of jails and prisons is, is vital to our communities.
Speaker 3 00:04:04 And, and so, you know, we we'll continue to, uh, put pressure on different, different pressure points in the industry. Um, so we, we, again, extended and invitation for HDR to come and talk to us to, to understand what our, what our concerns and, and why we don't need new jails and prisons, um, to be built in our, in our country. Um, and their refusal to even engage in a conversation with us is really more, um, um, in indicative of them <laugh> and, and the position that they're taking than us, because we, we focus on harm reduction in every aspect. And so that is why we wanted to speak with them, to explain to them how this hurts our communities. And if they're only considered, um, their only consideration is how much money they can make off the caging of people then, um, that that's gonna be their problem. That's, that's, that's gonna be their problem. We're gonna continue to put pressure on, um, new architects, um, students that are in wanting to become architects. We're gonna find and talk to everybody in this industry to explain to them why the building of prisons and jails is very harmful to communities and specifically communities of color and poor communities. And so their reticence to speak with us is not going to, um, diminish our efforts in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 1 00:05:29 Yeah, I hear that. And actually, a lot of our audiences are young architects or, you know, folks who are entering the profession. So hopefully they, you know, they listen and listen in and hear this. Um, it's really important discussion on that point too, is, you know, you haven't heard anything from HDR specifically, but perhaps you've heard other questions or oppositions.
Speaker 2 00:05:50 I think the most common opposition that I hear whenever we bring, I bring this up in any conversation is, is, well, we just wanna make it better for women. And that is aggravating because none of these people who have spoken to me have actually been inside of a prison. And there's nothing that you can do. I don't care if you give me Louis Vuitton sheets and house slippers, you know, I'm still in a prison. I'm still separated from my family. I'm still not being prepared for resources to reenter society successfully. And then I'm still gonna have that stigma. When I walk out that I have now a felony or whatever that I have to take care of. So it doesn't matter how pretty you make it, how much, how many gardens you put on it, the fact is, is harm. And we're doing harm not only to that person, but to the families. And so when you harm those families, you're harming communities at the end of the day, you really say, you care about community safety, then you should be focusing on investing in housing for families to stay together. So the communities can stay safe.
Speaker 1 00:07:04 That point could not be emphasized more, right? Like it's just, it's still a prison doesn't matter. And I've seen a lot of architects also labeling these as like justice centers or like, you know, the kind of using this, uh, these like euphemisms, uh, when really, or like feminist jail. I'm like, okay, well, look, it's still a jail, right.
Speaker 3 00:07:23 Well, and I'd like to add to what sister Maggie just talked about. So above and beyond the, the immediate and direct harm to the family and therefore by extension to the community of removing someone and specifically people who, um, the system identifies as women or who may self identify as female right into these women's facilities, the, there is one other glaring truth. The culture inside of these institutions is such that every single day women are either witness to, or subject of sexual verbal or physical abuse. And that is driven by the culture. And so there is no amount of paint. There is no amount of posh. There's no amount of anything else that you can design away the culture. And that is really, uh, the problem with these so-called feminist jails and trauma informed prisons that using this language to soften what these buildings actually are because of that culture that is embedded in and cannot be taken out of those institutions by paint, by design, by any of those things, because you cannot remove that.
Speaker 3 00:08:31 You cannot, um, prevent the people who are housed in those institutions from experiencing that, that specific type of harm. So when you think about it, there's no there's no work around for, for that cultural problem that is just, uh, pervasive in every single, um, wo uh, facility that houses, um, women or wo people who non-binary, or people who identify as women. And, and, and I don't, you don't have to believe me, just like, do Google searches on how many prisons in Illinois or not Illinois in the United States have had officers arrested as a result of sexual misconduct, right? Like that's the most egregious one rape and sexual misconduct that what's not being reported. Are, are they every day verbal and physical assaults that's happening. Um, and so you, when you think about how much harm is committed inside of those institutions, I just need to really emphasize that there's no designing that away. You cannot design that away.
Speaker 4 00:09:32 Touching on what AVAs Maggie said is that also prison or jail does not get to the root issue of why our women are even getting inside of the prison in the first place. And then on top of not addressing the root issue of the harm that they already were dealing with now, it's only causing more harm to these women. And my issue with HDR is I was actually on the call when they were talk, when they were presenting, what a so-called trauma informed prison would look like. And one of the things that stood out to me the most was that they are putting a, a, a nursery inside of this prison and allowing women that are pregnant and incarcerated to, um, have their child for up to one year to be with their, uh, child when their child is born. And so as a mother, I'm like, okay, if we feel safe enough to allow our women to be inside of the cage inside of this violent community, right?
Speaker 4 00:10:23 Because we know like what Ms. Avalon said, all the, all the harm that's happening inside of prisons, right. Where it's supposed to just be a place where you you're supposed to be caring for people's lives. Because if you take, take women off the community, that's your responsibility to make sure that they're safe, where they're at, but they're so harm being there. But now we're putting children inside of this cage. I mean, we, we, with women that are supposedly not even safe enough to be in the community, I mean, like, where are we going with this? Right. And like, how, how do you even feel comfortable allowing a woman to have a baby if she's so harmful? So that means we need to start to reevaluate the situation and figure out how we could allow this mother to be in, be a mother in her community.
Speaker 4 00:11:00 And that's all that we're saying in Massachusetts. I dunno what it's like in Texas or Chicago, but in Massachusetts, it cost $162,000 to keep a woman incarcerated. And for us, the number one reason why a woman is incarcerated is because they don't have access to housing. And so when you talk about a woman not having access to housing, 82% of those women are mothers not having access to housing. And a mother as a mother myself, I would do the most vulnerable thing to provide for my child. So if we had 50 million here in Massachusetts to build a new women's prison, why aren't we thinking about using some of that funding to build housing for our mothers and our children. So that way they're not causing more harm in the community. And so to go back to what Avalon was talking about about not, we don't wanna take money from architects.
Speaker 4 00:11:41 We understand that y'all have to feed y'all family, just like we have to feed our family. But what we don't, what we know is that if you build a new prison, they're gonna figure out how to put our children in those new prisons, our granddaughters, in those new prisons. And that's where we're putting a stop to, because change starts with us and we're gonna be that change. And we're saying that we don't need a new women's prison and that we need different. And so that's why we're calling on y'all to respond. And so I just felt like I had to get that out. Thank
Speaker 1 00:12:06 You so much for sharing that, that is really critical message is like, okay. If the main cause for being incarcerated in Massachusetts is lack of housing. It's like, well, architects, we could design housing, you
Speaker 2 00:12:19 Know? Yeah. And I wanna just add to what both of, um, Avalon and thought she said, um, the humiliation that I experienced inside of jails in prison had nothing to do with the architect with the way it was built. These people get into these positions and go on these power trips and feel like it is their mission to dehumanize you. It just makes me so fearful that they are thinking about putting children in these situations. There may be six, six wonderful cos that would be very loving, but there's gonna be that one that wants to come in and ruin that person's life. And, and it doesn't matter what they say. You know, uh, some of these things stick with us for the rest of our lives. And I mean, that just has to be remembered that cannot build a, a feminist jail. It just doesn't, it's an oxymoron. It doesn't make sense. It just, it's ridiculous that we're even thinking like that.
Speaker 3 00:13:19 I, I served time with women who gave birth, um, while incarcerated and the trauma of giving birth shackled and changed to a hospital bed with an officer in the room with you as if you are going to pop out and run with a baby coming, um, out of your body as if you're some type of threat in the midst of childbirth or your visits. When you go to have your prenatal. If, if you get prenatal care, like let's, let's say that if you even get proper prenatal care being handcuffed and shackled during those visits, just the thought of that experience just breaks my heart. And then we're going to say, we wanna bring and bring children into that culture for a year, right? And I'm not advocating for extending that, but taking whether I snatch that baby out of that mother's arms on day one or day 366.
Speaker 3 00:14:15 I'm still snatching that baby out of that mother's arms. If we've allowed women to care and nurture their children for a year to just kind of emphasize and echo what Sashi said, if we said, Hey, it's safe enough for you to do this with this child. So you are safe enough to have this baby around you for 12 months. How then are, can we in the same breath say that this person, this parent cannot is not safe enough to be in their community? Like, I, I don't understand that logic. It doesn't make any sense to me. And then the harm on that family. And especially on that, that child, like, like Maggie said, you could have, I, I can't say we had six good cos, but you could have 6, 6, 6, good cos, but there's always going to be the one who is bound and determined to harm you with words and action.
Speaker 3 00:15:06 They are bound and, and, and they will denigrate your child just as much as they denigrate you. And again, just pointing out this cultural problem, architects cannot fix that. And here's one of the main reasons why you can't fix it, which is why you shouldn't partake in it. It's the training. They train them in using military training techniques and strategies. When you think about that, when we train our military, there has to be an enemy, right? So there has to be an enemy where, who do you think the enemy is inside of our prisons and jails, those that are in, that are incarcerated in those cages are as a result of the training that they receive the enemy. And if you are the enemy, I don't have to treat you as if you're human. I don't have to do things in a way that I would to someone that is not my enemy.
Speaker 3 00:15:59 Right. So, and pretty will not change that. Right? Like pretty can't change that. Um, and so that is why it's imperative, that the, that the industry of design and engineering and building recognizes that you are contributing to that very distinct harm that's happening inside of those facilities that you build, you do not get to say, well, we just built it. We're not responsible. What happens for what happens on the inside. And that is really the message that I am trying to get across. We're not trying to like slash you said, we're not trying to take money. We want you to be able to feed and take care of your family. Right? Like, that's the goal that we are trying to have for the people in our community. The problem is, is that you're not just doing it. That's not just the outcome. It, it, yes. It takes care of your family, but it hurts whole communities.
Speaker 1 00:16:50 Yeah, exactly. And that's like, you know, that's a huge point, right? I mean, like, that's almost asking like an architect also, because it's like further along the chain, like the architect might not be the root cause of people getting incarcerated, but they're like is still a part of that system. And so it's almost like the bare minimum for architecture firms to just be like, actually, we just won't do this. Right. You know, it's not something to complicated. And we have seen architecture firms take a stance on, for example, the war Ukraine and being like, oh, we're not gonna work with Russia. Okay. So you're not gonna work with Russia, but you can't stop building prisons. Right. It's like, it's sort of like, there's this dissonance in the architecture industry and that like, okay, you're saying you can't do this, but at the same time, you've literally done this.
Speaker 1 00:17:34 Right. <laugh>, you know, I think that's a really important point to, to hit home. And I mean, really appreciate all of you sharing your experiences. And I know that this is a lot of labor, um, that goes into this. This is very brave. I personally feel that architects need to do way more, but, you know, let's say we appreciate the effort and the labor that it takes to bring the conversation to, to their doors, right. To meet people where they're at. And this is even going a step further, really let's imagine HDR or some other architecture firm has agreed to stop building prisons or agreed to be a part of a reparative process. Let's say, uh, between grassroots organizations, what do you think that process would look like?
Speaker 3 00:18:15 Communities know what they need. Sashi outlined that, you know, one of the biggest contributors to, um, harms that are happening in communities that result in the criminalization of, of specifically women in those that identify as women are not in non-binary is lack of housing. All right. That let's, let's get together. And instead of having 50 million go towards building a, a prison, let let the design industry and architectures, um, say no, you know what? We stand with them. And we demand if that 50, $50 million be spent on housing and we, and we we'll still do the work, but we wanted to go in this direction when we know that there are things like parks that, that communities don't have that need communities who have been devastated by the war on drugs and mass incarceration, like all of the infrastructure, you know, that needs to be built and designed.
Speaker 3 00:19:03 Um, you know, when we think about like the city of Flint, right. That still to this day does not have clean water. Right. Like the design. And I mean, and I know that that's, that goes a little bit beyond, but that still someone has to design those systems right. In that infrastructure to ensure that those children and those families in that city have access to clean water. So I'm just saying there, there are a million projects that we can identify based on those hyperlocal needs for that community, that if the architecture, um, industry just stood with us and said, yeah, wait a minute. No, we can spend that money and build this. So they still make the same money, right? Like it's not cutting out their profits or their, um, revenues, but the, but the end result is something that builds up communities and helps it create thriving communities, um, versus, um, devastating them. And so that to me is, is again, it's just a matter of if they stand with us and say, yeah, here are all these projects that we are, we would love to build. And we are demanding that we build, because this is what the community needs. They still get their money.
Speaker 1 00:20:06 It means, like you said, before, architecture by itself, can't fix things, it's you can't right. And so in working together with communities, with organizations and developing housing, that seems like the best way to kind of move forward because it's like, you can't just have architecture by itself.
Speaker 2 00:20:25 What helped me when I got outta prison this time was a community. And the times that I cycled in and out, in and out, in and out prison, wasn't any contribution to what I am today. I use that experience for others, but it, it was not, not any help. And so what I, I do wanna say is that a community is what needs to be invested in. We need to invest in places for families to be together and grow together. And I tell this to everybody, I didn't need a hand out. I needed a hand up whenever somebody embraced me, empowered me and helped me to build up, build myself up. I mean, I mean, this guy's the limit, you know? And so if we stop thinking of people as us and them and realizing that we do come out, we do come into your communities. We do live next door. We do work in places that we are allowed to work, you know, in the community. So investing in us and with us will help the community stay safer. And if you want to learn more about the statewide leadership council go to www, do Texas C J org, Texas cje.org.
Speaker 4 00:22:01 I was, I, I think that was really beautiful on Maggie. And I really appreciate that, cuz I feel like, you know, even as a community, even as our own community members, we have a lot of work to do with building each other up. So because we could save each other, we don't need other people to save us. Right. And so I really appreciate that. Um, but also, you know, what, what specifically HDR being the fourth largest architectural firm in the country. I feel as though we, we, as a, as, as a community, as all of us nationwide statewide state to state has a obligation, um, supporting architects that are smaller than HDR that take that, you know, that need to say, you know what, we're not gonna build a new prison in jail. We're gonna build what the community looks like because there are architects that agree with us and that stand with us and we need to begin to shift those dollars, um, into those architects.
Speaker 4 00:23:03 So that way they can now level up and be the fourth largest architectural, um, company in the country, right. We need to start investing in our people that stand with us. And so I really, and that starts with, you know, HD has not only built over 275 prisons and jails, but they took place in building churches, schools. Those are all places of healing. You can't build a place of healing in a place of harm and be equal. And so if you are allowing a harmful company to build a place of hill, you are participating in the harm that is now being done to other communities that are not equal or where your church or school is at anymore. And we need to stop that and we need to pause and figure out, okay, who is working on our project. And I think that is the most important part.
Speaker 4 00:23:56 And we have a beautiful model in Massachusetts because when this has been a three year war for us here in Massachusetts against HDR in the first, uh, round, we were able to meet with one of our architects and bought women like Maggie women, like Avalon children, like, well, I'm not a child anymore, but children that were, you know, had incarcerated parents to the table and talked to them about how harmful this project wasn't and it had no idea. They thought that this was what we wanted. And when we talked to them about what we needed and wanted, they pulled out of the project and they reached back to us and said, okay, how can we help you build what you like? And now they're a part of the process of building what we want, and this is what we need. You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 00:24:38 And we, we have a hydroponic farm where we're getting landed in different states and we need people to help us build because we are coming up because we are, we're not gonna stop until all of our women are free. We work to end incarceration of women and girls. We're not gonna stop until all community members have the resources that they need. We're not gonna stop until our children can play in the parks, feel comfortable. We're not gonna start until stop until our children have the same education that everybody else has. We are not going to stop until our people are equal and our people are free. So you have no choice. But to get on the level that we're talking about and meet us where we are at. So that way we can meet y'all where y'all are at. So that way we can be equal and our women can come home to good communities and Maggie, I really appreciate what you said again.
Speaker 4 00:25:25 When you said that the community saved you because we change can only happen inside of a community. And I hate the fact that there's a narrative saying that we can help substance use and mental health inside of prisons and jails, and then send our people back to the community that they came from. That's a automatic design for failure. We need to build treatment centers in our community. We need to build mental health centers, community centers, parks, schools, everything that other communities have. We need to build the same thing in communities that are under resourced and over incarcerated. And so it takes the village and we're building that village and we need architects to help us build the village. So join the team. And if you wanna support the national council, you can become a member, um, at the national council.us, um, and also follow our reimagining communities infrastructure.
Speaker 1 00:26:19 Awesome. Thank you so much. All of you for joining us today, and you're an architect and you wanna get involved. One of the organizations that you could join is designed as protest, reach out, you know, uh, don't be, don't be afraid. We have we're building again. It's like we're building this community, uh, and it takes a village and we keep us safe.
