Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Approximately 2.7 million children in the US are experiencing the effects of parental incarceration. The immediate and lasting impacts on these children include psychological and behavioral problems, feelings of abandonment, broken attachment, economic hardship, and academic difficulties. One way to minimize these devasting and long-term effects is through rebuilding, strengthening, and maintaining secure parent-child attachment relationships. Creating a visiting space within the correctional facility to nurture this critical relationship is necessary. Prison visiting spaces tend to be cold and institutional, compounded with strict regulations allowing little to no physical contact. Many caregivers opt out of bringing children to prison visits out of concern that it may be more detrimental than beneficial. The garden is based on evidence that access to nature promotes positive psychological and physical health benefits and provides positive natural distractions. Created by a team of incarcerated women and design students, the garden, located within a women’s prison includes spaces for nurturing parent-child relationships through conversation, shared experiences, and play. This paper highlights the design process and the garden design itself. We also discuss results of the mixed-method study conducted after the garden opened, which explored the experiences of incarcerated women and their visitors through which, ninety-eight percent of garden visitors indicated the garden improved their visits and identified the following as related to that impact: more child-friendly environment, improved affective experience, home-like visiting environment, and more and better parent-child interaction.