If we apply this rather pragmatic psychology to the problem of
planning a new prison, we find it obvious at the outset that a prison
population forms, together with its dependencies, a complete segregated
community and therefore presents few phases which have not been
successfully solved in the various treatments of community houses in
past eras. Bearing in mind both this and the psychological principles
which determine the function of any segregated community, it becomes
perfectly clear that the old system of plotting an entire prison plan
on an absolutely level piece of ground does not agree with either the
teachings of history or the psychological principles which determine
the site of community housing, and it thus becomes manifest that if we
are to plan a prison which will be both a protection and a benefit to
society we must select our site and construct our plans with the idea
of having different grades of elevation for different degrees of social
eminence.
If, remembering this, we summon practical experience to our aid we find
that a prison population divides itself naturally into three major
divisions, two of which are composed of actual inmates and a third of
those in authority over them. The first and largest of these groups is
made up of sub-normals and general recalcitrants who of necessity must
work, eat, and sleep under constant and direct supervision. These will
be confined in strong, well-guarded buildings situated within a walled
enclosure and the work which they do will be such as can be efficiently
done within the comparatively small space to which they are restricted.
The second group, composed of prisoners who have shown themselves
worthy of trust, will be allowed privileges which are denied the first.
A concrete expression of these privileges will consist of lodging them
in buildings situated on a higher level and with no enclosing walls,
thus allowing them to carry on dairying, farming, stone crushing and
similar industries.
As the working out of our community idea demands that the governing
class occupy a higher site than those they govern, we have planned an
adjacent but higher elevation for the offices, dwellings and other
buildings necessary for the proper maintenance of a model prison.
In our plan for the new Wingdale Prison we have attempted to express
a prison which will meet the scientific and historic precedents which
we have at our command, and we fully believe that our plan will exert
as beneficial an influence on our prisoners as did the noble monuments
on the Acropolis at Athens on the humble people who constructed their
mud-brick houses at its base.