Carceral Landscapes

Imprisonment, quite literally, is all around us. The American criminal legal system, especially as it disproportionately incapacitates Black and Brown communities, forms a landscape of retribution and inequity. Carceral Landscapes focuses on the network of prisons, jails, detention centers, and their attendant infrastructure that comprises the backbone of the United States legal system. This symposium aims to expand conversations on the criminal legal system beyond law and police, centering the pivotal—though often unacknowledged—role of design in the construction of carceral facilities that surround you today.