‘They “do something” with the prisoners’: The meaning of large, green yards in closed prisons

• In Event: Prison Working Group: Factors impacting the quality of life in prison

Abstract

Despite an increased research interest in prison architecture and the establishment of carceral geography as a field of study, little attention has been paid to prison yards and the outdoor spaces in-between buildings in prisons. This presentation, however, will present a study of prison yards and outdoor prison spaces in Norway. More specifically, it focuses on prisoners’ possibilities of movement in the outdoor prison landscape and the possibilities the body has to create relations and be affected by this landscape. The results from a data-collection in two new closed prisons in Norway (Froland prison and Mandal prison) show that carefully planned green and large yards are of great importance for the prisoners’ quality of life. According to the prison officers, these yards “do something” with the prisoners. However, this requires that the prisoners can spend time in the yards. Their bodies must be present in the prison landscape in order to create relations with the surroundings and experience “the green” with all the senses – to smell it, to touch it, and to feel the movement on different grounds (grass, gravel and asphalt) and between different levels. Limited access to the landscape, or just having the opportunity to look at it, can be experienced as painful.

Author

• Berit Johnsen, Kriminalomsorgens høgskole og utdanningssenter KRUS