It’s no secret that the justice system in the United States needs reform. A proposal in New York City aims to address one specific link in the chain: city jails. What if jails were community hubs? How does treating people with dignity improve recidivism rates? And can the design of a space make us behave better? This week’s episode is based on the Next City article by Catesby Holmes on the now mayor-backed idea of smaller, community-based jails in each of the boroughs.

We are also super excited to announce that this episode is the first in a partnership with Next City on a series of conversations about interesting stories found on NextCity.org. Check them out for more in-depth analysis of urban issues and stay tuned for more frequent content from them every month! 

If you like these conversations and advocating for human-scale cities, you can donate to our crowdfunded efforts on our Patreon page at www.patreon.com/thirdwaveurbanism. Thank you to our supporters, and thank you all for listening, sharing, and doing what you do!

As always, you can keep up with our thoughts and send us your comments on Twitter or Instagram: Katrina can be found at @think_katrinaKristen can be found at @blackurbanist

Articles referenced in this episode:

Main article from Next City — New York Has a Chance to Embrace This New Type of Jail Design: https://nextcity.org/features/view/new-york-rikers-closing-prison-design-humane-jail

New Yorker — The Life of a South Central Statistic: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/24/the-life-of-a-south-central-statistic?reload=true

The Atlantic — Why Scandinavian Prisons are Superior: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/

Intro and closing music is “Urban Life” by Gustavs Strazdin used under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode