In reality, prison living conditions vary widely, from the inhumane conditions of maximum security facilities to the veritable motels where white-collar criminals are held. In the United States, which has the highest incarceration rate in the world with almost 2.3 million people behind bars, many facilities are deteriorating, overcrowded, and violent places of institutional corruption and abuse of power. Even worse, private prisons house 8.2 percent of all state and federal prisoners, including people detained by immigration officials, making revenues of about $4 billion a year.

The actual material conditions of these prisons make those seen in series like The Wire and Orange is the New Black look like vacation resorts. And it’s true that many other countries around the world are similarly abusive and exploitative, or worse. But not every prison around the world looks as you’d imagine. In Ukraine, even maximum security men’s prisons have a surprising amount of personality (and even a sense of domesticity).

In a recent piece for The New York Times, photojournalist Misha Friedman explores some of these fascinating spaces, and the contrasts he finds with American prisons are sure to shock you.

Friedman writes that he “first visited Ukrainian prisons in 2009, while working on a project for Doctors Without Borders. I remember seeing the conjugal rooms and being struck by how no two rooms were alike,” he says. “I wondered whether we could learn something about a country by observing the places where the incarcerated live. I returned to Ukraine nine years later after securing wide-ranging access to photograph the country’s penal system.”

“I visited 17 prisons all over the country: maximum security, pretrial, men’s and women’s, and one juvenile. Prisoners decorate their own rooms. There’s no budget, no guidelines, or any kind of code that dictates what rooms should look like. The rooms are reflective of not only their taste but also of an impoverished institution. Perhaps a wall is painted green because the warden was able to procure a few cans from the local paint shop, as a barter for some pickled cabbage made in the prison’s kitchen. Three of the prisons I visited had only recently closed. I could still feel the essence of the people who had inhabited these spaces.”

In the United States, the prevailing attitude about prisons is that they’re full of bad people who made bad choices, and that those people deserve whatever they get. The system is based on punishment rather than rehabilitation, often reinforcing criminality instead of reforming it. There’s little public support for treating prisoners as human beings who can change, given the proper resources.

These images of Ukraine’s prisons reflect something we seem to have lost: recognition of each other’s humanity. You can see the whole photo essay at The New York Times.

The post The Unique Interior Design of Ukrainian Prisons first appeared on Dornob.

Even the earliest building blueprints included considerations for what was happening in the world at the time. For example, forts like Brimstone Hill Fortress on the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts were intentionally placed on higher ground so as to provide their occupants with optimal views of approaching invaders. Even in the medieval age of castles, monarchs included lookout towers, moats, and other seemingly impenetrable lines of defense to serve specific purposes. Later, the idea of urban safety influenced designs for municipal buildings and residential housing alike. Today we have a different kind of enemy to protect against: individuals who perpetrate mass shootings or other types of terror attacks.

As a result of these attacks, we’re already seeing huge changes in urban planning. This encompasses infrastructure to mitigate attacks on high-rise buildings from car and other streetside bombs. It also entails putting barriers up around buildings and monuments. However, these steps do little to protect against the damage one might cause once they’re inside those buildings.

The statistics are alarming to say the least. As of December 1st, 2019, there have been 385 mass shootings in the U.S. this year, according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA). That’s an average of more than one mass shooting per day. Even worse, 29 of these incidents resulted in mass murders, which begs the question, “What can we do about it?” The answer might just be in architectural protection.

This idea integrates more than typical safety precautions that protect against crime, such as placing bars on the windows or installing deadbolts. In fact, it requires an entirely new way of thinking about architecture. That’s because terror attacks and shootings (and even mass stabbings) happen in a second. There’s no time to rely on a police response. Studies of mass shootings in recent years calculate the average time between an attacker entering the building and the end of the shooting is less than ten minutes. Crisis architecture means installing systems that work to save lives by offering protection the moment a crisis begins.

Although there have been attacks in workplaces, churches, and even movie theaters before, the dozens of school shootings in just the past decade make for the best example of how crisis architecture could prevent tragedies in the future. Learning from past attacks, schools recognize the need to be able to lock classrooms from the inside, easily lockdown an entire campus, and use cameras to spot attackers before they even enter the building. Unfortunately, measures like these have mostly been met with uncertainty by school districts for several reasons, including issues with student privacy, lack of viable information about what works, and high costs.

Crisis architecture is the idea that systems can be standardized and integrated from the blueprint stage rather than by looking towards temporary solutions for individual situations. This allows all the systems within the building to work together in a discreet and fluid way as a functional part of the overall design.

Specifically, War on the Rocks identifies eight key functionalities that would maximize physical defenses for public buildings.

1. Enable Creation of Distance: This basically means improving traffic flow within the building by incorporating more corridors and stairways to handle mass migrations.
2. Safe Exit from Multiple Points: The design should provide multiple avenues for safely getting out of the building in the case of an attack.
3. Incorporate Angles to Limit a Shooter’s Line of Sight: Build in natural and appealing blockades that limit endless site in long hallways or from a doorway. This gives victims places to seek shelter and limits an attacker’s ability to target people.
4. Provide Adequate Cover and Concealment: This includes the incorporation of bullet-proof features, as well as wall and furniture placement for better concealment.
5. Enable Rapid Hardening of a Facility: This covers systems such as deadbolts, window coverings, and ballistic doors that automatically engage at the sound of an alarm.
6. Implement “Human-Centered Design” Concepts: Work with the basic human fight-or-flight response to predict how people will act during a crisis.
7. Training and Design Need to be Mutually Supporting: This means coordinating crisis training with the infrastructure in ways that make it possible to either stay in one’s current location or quickly and safely escape.
8. Integrate Systems to Increase the Situational Awareness of First Responders: Installation of systems that give first responders the information they need.

So the question remains, given the desired level of security and all the associated costs, is crisis architecture the way of the future?

The post Is “Crisis Architecture” the Way of the Future? first appeared on Dornob.

Now, Dubai police are hoping to solve some of those crimes with the help of bugs — more specifically, the kind that feast on human flesh.

A Bug’s Life (and Larvae)

If you’ve ever happened upon a decomposing animal in the woods, you’ll probably find it hard to forget the countless creatures you saw squirming around the carcass. They’re varied species of bugs of arthropods (spineless animals with external skeletons), each snacking on everything from the ears to the tail. The infestation may seem random, but each one of these insects prefers to feast on specific specific body parts, and all of them plant larvae in the corpse’s decaying flesh. That’s where the Dubai police come in.

By monitoring the activities of the insects native to the United Arab Emirates and the the growth of their larvae, forensic experts can approximate how long a body has been dead. Factors such as the environmental temperature and place of death can also be determined this way, providing investigators with information that could prove instrumental in determining time of death and narrowing down potential suspects, as well as helping them build a stronger case in court.

Bringing in the Pros

Seeing the potential behind these creepy-crawlies, the UAE government turned to Dr. Jeffrey D. Wells, an expert in forensic entomology at Florida International University. Wells was brought on board to develop and oversee fresh research, establish a new database, and train Dubai’s police officers about bugs and their habits to help increase their crime-solving success rate.

Dr. Wells says of the initiative: “It is very exciting to work with a government agency that is so interested in improving what they do and moving into new topics. We intend to take this project and expand it out into a more comprehensive understanding of forensic entomology [the study of insects and their arthropod relatives that inhabit decomposing remains] within the UAE and the wider region.”

Last year, 22 of Dubai’s finest DNA experts and crime scene investigators completed an interactive forensic entomology course. Its curriculum was comprised of in-depth studies on several different species of bug and their larvae’s distinct shapes, as well as growth statistics, species allocation, and the types of toxins found in insect tissue — all of which can be used to create more successful and expedient criminal investigations.

Looking Forward

Although much has already been learned and applied, Dr. Wells notes that his work with the Dubai police is an ongoing project. “This is intended to be a pilot project to lead to something much larger. We hope to build upon what we learn here to extend it to the summer, which everyone tells me is extremely hot, and particularly to other areas of the United Arab Emirates,” he says.

The post Dubai Police are Using Bugs to Solve Crimes first appeared on Dornob.

Deutsche Bahn, the German national rail network, will soon try playing atonal music in Berlin’s Hermannstrasse station in hopes of reducing crime and deterring loitering. This music has been proven to agitate some listeners, creating a feeling of anxiety within them by increasing their blood pressure and level of auditory discomfort. DB hopes that the music, which is decidedly unmelodic, will sufficiently deter crime without disturbing all the passengers. Friedemann Kessler, the company’s Eastern Regional Manager, says: “Few people find it beautiful — many people perceive it as something to run away from.”

This strategy is proving to be quite controversial, as while the station has experienced numerous instances of crime, including a man kicking a woman down the stairs and high rates of drug use, it is also commonly used as a refuge by homeless people. Initiative Neue Musik, an organization that celebrates contemporary music, has even launched a counter-initiative in response to the trial. Members of INM have explicitly spoken out against the trial, believing that “art should not be weaponized” and staging several atonal music concerts to make a mockery of the proposal. The group successfully organized a peaceful recital outside the station, bringing food with them to encourage homeless people to come and feel included.

The group reported that Friedemann Kessler was also in attendance at the protest. By the time the concert finished, he apparently wanted to rescind his plans to play atonal music at the station, having been educated on its true origins by the performance.

While this particular plan is considered by many to be a hostile form of discouragement, it is not uncommon for transport hubs to employ music as a tool to calm or soothe passengers. Stations in Montreal and London have experimented with playing classical music, for instance, as it has been proven to quell antisocial behaviors. Other initiatives have involved changing the lighting in subway stations or experimenting with perfumes thought to engender feelings of positivity. It’s undoubtedly a more empathetic strategy to try and create positive feelings instead of negative ones, so it’s perhaps no wonder that the atonal music strategy was a non-starter, especially in a city as progressive as Berlin.

The post Berlin Subway Station to Use Anxiety-Inducing Music to Stop Crime first appeared on Dornob.

To understand the importance of Forensic Architecture, it helps to consider a city dealing with the fallout from something like multiple days of demonstrations during a summit of world leaders. During these meetings, most protestors will exercise their right to free speech, and some of them may even approach the demonstrations with more anarchic motives. The latter group is often dealt with more harshly by law enforcement, which sometimes results in individual members of riot squads being accused of violating human rights.

In some cases, these accusations are backed up by video evidence, but in many others they are not. When crimes are witnessed by others in person but there is no recording of the incident, law enforcement may try to spin the events in their favor. Thanks to forensic architecture, these narratives can now be challenged with scientific evidence.

Since 2011, FA’s team of architects, investigative journalists, filmmakers, designers, coders, psychologists, archaeologists, and human rights activists have been recreating crimes by taking advantage of all available information in the public domain, as well as the information kept by nearby third parties. This includes personal videos, social media posts, sounds picked up by microphones and cameras at the scene, and eye-witness accounts. When all of this data is entered into an architectural software, both the scene and the incident can be digitally rendered. When more is required, FA relies on animations, maps, physical models, and drawings to expose the truth of the matter.

The research agency has also investigated genocides in Guatemala and World War II concentration camps, police brutality in Gaza, the destruction of small villages by drone strikes, hospitals that were purposely bombed in Syria, and the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London, where 71 people perished. Their work is highly sought after by organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as lawyers, activists, and adversarial journalists.

The work performed by Forensic Architecture takes on more significance when you consider the crimes, human rights violations, and increasing urbanization taking place in countries all over the world. Many of these incidents are taking place in cities, where we have the technology to document incidents for further review. Although many are concerned with privacy and the personal information being collected, Forensic Architecture has shown that it can all be used for good. This does not mean that our cities will be safer, but it does prove how powerful architecture can be when removed from the aesthetic realm and employed purely for justice.

The post How Forensic Architecture Helps Solve Human Rights Violations first appeared on Dornob.

Homebrewing alcohol has been attracting a rather large following in the United States and some other countries, but the in-home production of alcohol is prohibited in many parts of the world. The Prohibition Kit from designer Francesco Morackini is a cheeky take on the hobby and its rather shady origins.

During Prohibition in the U.S., some crafty folks with the right equipment and the right knowledge made their own liquor to get past the country’s outright outlawing of the substance. However, getting caught meant stiff punishments. So the smart bootleggers discovered how to disguise their equipment and their work spaces.

The Prohibition Kit does the same thing, but with the added benefit of almost an entire century of additional manufacturing technology. Morackini’s kit features four separate objects that can be used as perfectly legal items in the home: a pot, a watering can, a fruit bowl and a fondue pot. Separately, they are innocent and commonly seen in many kitchens.

Put them together, however, and the common kitchen objects become a fully functional alcohol still. You can make your own schnapps at home, and between uses no one will be the wiser about the actual intended function of each of the components. As the designer points out, you can even use each of these items in the growing of the fruit for the alcohol. The intentionally provocative project brings up some challenging questions: when do everyday items become criminalized, and when do our governments have the right to restrict the use of certain objects based solely on their potential to one day be used in a crime?

The post Cheeky Kitchen Objects Hide a Provocative Secret Function first appeared on Dornob.