The “Prison House” and Normalization. Between the Reassertion of Privacy and the Risk of Collectiveness

Abstract

The principle of “normalization” in penology maintains that the life of people in captivity should resemble as far as possible the positive aspects of “normal” life in free society. To critically understand how the theories and practices of normalization impact our discourses about space within and beyond detention institutions, this essay considers the “prison house,” a genre that includes a range of homely, small-scale carceral facilities. The “prison house” attempts to normalize life, often through a process of “home-ification.” In doing so, it sublimates the notion of privacy – in its double modern connotation, as defined by Robin Evans, of solitude and domesticity – and re-introduces collectiveness as a choreographed practice hailed as a tool for reform and as guarantor of a daily social order. This article asks: does the “prison house” mimic or anticipate how free people live together in the residential architecture of the city?