Helene de Vos is Executive Director of the European RESCALED movement. After her studies in criminology, Helene became a prison researcher at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (KU Leuven). Her doctoral research focus on the normalization of living conditions in Belgian and Norwegian prisons. By spending a great deal of time in these prisons, not only her academic interest grew, but also her motivation to change the prison system. That is why she joined RESCALED in 2019. As the Executive Director, she is responsible for leading the RESCALED team, directing the organizational strategies and coordinating the activities of the European and national RESCALED offices.

RESCALED supports the use of small-scale detention houses instead of large prison institutions. To make this plea concrete, ‘small-scale’ is defined as a maximum of 30 people per facility. This is based on research and international practices, which show that this scale facilitates more personal interaction and more direct communication and that it results in less bureaucracy and less procedures when compared to large institutions. Why maximum 30 though?

Smaller than 50 places

More than ten years ago, a team of Norwegian researchers measured the quality of life in all 32 closed prisons in Norway. They found that the experienced quality of life was significantly higher in prisons with a capacity of less than 50 places (Johnsen, Granheim & Helgesen, 2011; Johnsen & Granheim, 2012). In these small prisons, incarcerated people experienced their relationships with staff, their general treatment and their well-being more positively than those in larger prisons. Interestingly, these positive experiences were also found for frontline staff members, both in their interactions with incarcerated people and with their senior management. These findings are in line with other international research and suggest that prison facilities with a capacity of less than 50 perform better in areas that really matter to the people involved.

Yet, however interesting these findings are, they only tell part of the story. It would be too simple to conclude that all prisons with a capacity of less than 50 places perform better than larger prisons. One important observation is that almost all small-scale prisons in this Norwegian research had a capacity that was much lower than 50, with an average of around 25 places per prison. This observation was also made by architects who visited small-scale prison facilities for various research projects, like Sabrina Puddu (University of Cambridge & University of the Arts London) and Matt Dwyer (Local time). Even though they visited very different facilities in different countries and for different projects, they received similar answers to the question about the ideal number of people per facility: between 8 and 24-25.

The meaning of numbers

So how about a capacity of 7, 26 or 49? Does this number really matter? It does matter more than one would think at first glance. As confirmed by the Norwegian research, the benefits of small scale facilities are related to the quality of the relationships between incarcerated people, first-line staff members and management, and more specifically to the nature of communication, feeling of involvement, sense of fairness and respect. Given the importance of relationships or social interactions, the scale should not be measured by the number of people, but by the number of individual relationships or social interactions between these people. For example, in a group of 4 individuals (person A, B, C, D), there are six possible interactions between them (A with B, A with C, A with D, B with C, B with D, C with D)[1]. With each additional person, this number of relationships increases exponentially. In a group of 24 people, there are 276 possible individual relationships and in a group of 30 people this becomes 435. When considering a prison or detention house with a capacity for 24 or 30 incarcerated people, we are rather talking about groups of 48 or 60 people (with a 1:1 staff-resident ratio), and the number of relationships between them will increase accordingly. When looking at these numbers, it is much easier to understand why it becomes challenging or impossible to really know each other individually in a facility with more than 24 or 25 incarcerated people.

For the same reasons, there is also a minimum number of people needed to create the minimum number of interactions necessary for a healthy group dynamic. When Matt Dwyer visited facilities for young people, it became clear to him that this minimum is 8. The desired group dynamics were unlikely to emerge in groups with less than 8 young people. Also Sabrina Puddu was told that the minimum is 8, since a smaller group does not allow for enough variety in social interactions, which can then easily result in toxic relationships and conflicts. Similar experiences with tense social climates were heard in Norway, in the context of the very small local prisons that housed only 4 or 5 people (but have been closed down a long time ago).

[1] This insight was explained to me by Matt Dwyer.

The value of constructive relationships

Of course, none of this is really about numbers. It is about people. The small number only helps to shape constructive group dynamics and interpersonal relationships, which are valuable for various reasons. First, when incarcerated people experience the relationships in a facility more positively, the levels of general well-being tend to increase, while the levels violence, disorder and self-harm decrease (Auty & Liebling, 2020; Johnsen et al. 2011; Liebling, 2004; 2011). Moreover, feelings of safety increase for most incarcerated people when staff is visible and approachable, and incidents can be prevented or more easily solved (Crewe, Liebling & Hulley, 2014). Second, a higher perceived quality of life during incarceration has been linked to reduced reoffending after release (Auty & Liebling, 2020). Third, the higher job satisfaction reported by frontline staff in smaller prisons also lead to reduced sick leave and eventually to reduced costs (Johnsen et al., 2011). Finally, the small-scale also contributes to better relationships with people from outside the facilities, because such facilities are more likely to be located in neighbourhoods that are easily accessible to staff, NGOs and visitors (Johnsen &.Granheim, 2012), and because small-scale facilities tend to be more visitor-friendly than large prison institutions, which is particularly relevant when the visitors are children.

From all the above, it is clear that the scale of detention facilities plays an important facilitating role in shaping a constructive ecosystem, and should therefore be limited to 30 people per facility, and more correctly to 8 to 25 people. At the same time, however, it should also be clear that the scale is only a facilitator and not a solution in itself. More is needed, but reducing the scale is a valuable first step.

Acknowledgements: I owe many thanks to Matt Dwyer and Sabrina Puddu for sharing their insights and research findings with me, which are far more relevant and nuanced than presented in this blog text.