Plans and Illustrations of Prisons and Reformatories — John Shaqi
Plans and Illustrations of Prisons and Reformatories
Science
Plans and Illustrations of Prisons and Reformatories
Prisons -- Design and construction; Prisons -- United States; Reformatories -- United States
Let the Criminal Court Building be 400 feet square, with interior
lighting courts, or in the form of a cross, with a frontage of 200 feet
on each of the four sides. Let the Court House contain as many stories
as may be needed: four, five, or six, as the case may be.
Let the County Jail start from the roof of the Court House in the form
of a cross, of which the arms will be 90 by 40 feet, with a central
rotunda on each floor about 60 feet square.
Assuming that the Criminal Court Building will be four stories high
(in the drawing a typical building of one story is given in order
to indicate the relations of the court building and the jail), the
jail proper, will begin on the fifth floor. On this floor will be the
jailer’s offices and residence, the kitchen, officers’ dining room,
officers’ lodging rooms, etc. The street elevators and the street
stairways will terminate on the fifth floor and will be connected by
a grated and guarded passageway with the jail elevator and stairway,
which will start from the fifth floor, in order to prevent escapes.
If prisoners were to “hold up” the prison elevator, they could get no
further than the fifth floor.
The “typical floor plan” indicates the arrangement of the cells. Each
floor will be separate and distinct and will contain 100 cells, each
7 by 10 feet and 10 feet high, to accommodate one prisoner. The cells
will be placed on the outside wall, with windows 4 by 4 feet, providing
abundant light and air. There will be four distinct sections on each
floor, containing 25 cells each. There will be as many floors as may
be necessary to provide for the highest estimated number of prisoners.
The drawings contemplate six cell floors which would accommodate 600
prisoners, with additional accommodation for 56 prisoners in the
hospital.
The building will be planned with a view to erecting additional
stories whenever required, without change of the administrative
departments.
The arrangement of the building will be such that the cell windows will
be about 350 feet distant from the windows of the buildings on the
street opposite. These cell windows can be set at any desired distance
from the floor and the lower sash may be fixed in place and supplied
with ribbed glass.
SECURITY
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