SHAPING THE FUTURE Architecture for the Rehabilitation of Juvenile offenders

Abstract

To define juvenile is simply children under the age of 18 who are involved in crimes. These children need a safe place to reflect upon their actions and a facility that helps them re-establishh their feeling of self-esteem with the goal that they can turn into better people of the social order and to get them free of the sentiment of regret due to the offense they have committed by rehabilitation through architecture, by employing environmental cues that regulate behavior, and humane treatment of the children within defensible spaces. These facilities need to be designed specifically for this purpose and on certain standards that fulfill the requirement. This report discusses the research around juvenile jails and juvenile facilities, its architecture, standards and the design process that it leads to. It talks about the current conditions of juveniles and the risks that endangers their future and causes an increase in the rate of recidivism, the design standards being followed, the flaws in the design patterns, security, architectural conditions that prevail and the treatment of the inmates. The report also discusses a proposed design of how the facilities need to function, spatially and socially in a different way than a jail as it can lead to a negative influence on the minors and that these children when leave that place have a social and work skill that they can build a life upon. Conducting research about facilities in Pakistan does not provide much other than the rare information these facilities write about, themselves. The amount of juvenile rehabilitation institutes is scarce. Only 7 juvenile facilities serve the 4 provinces. Punjab has the highest crime rate in the country however only 2 juvenile facilities serve the province which are long standing and least beneficial to the children.