The psychology of justice buildings: A survey experiment on police architecture, public sentiment, and race

Abstract

Empirical investigations examining how the architectural design of justice buildings impacts the public is scant and heavily skewed toward the design of penal institutions. Applying theories of hostile and welcoming building design, this study uses a survey experiment to investigate the impact that welcoming and hostile police station designs have on public affect and behaviorally relevant perceptions. Findings reveal main and interactive effects of architectural design on positive affect. Specifically, building design becomes a significant predictor of perceptions depending on an individual's self-identified racial or ethnic group, where Black and Latino respondents report greater positive emotional responses when presented with hostile as compared to welcoming building designs. However, there was no impact of building design on negative affect or behaviorally relevant perceptions to report crime. The results of this study have potential implications for impacting public perceptions about policing and improving service delivery experiences.