Creating Better Models for Youth Facility Design (PID057)

11.30am – 12pm EDT, 25 April 2024 ‐ 30 mins

Room: Meeting Room 8

Parallel Workshops

Many jurisdictions look to their adult correctional facility models as a basis for the design of their youth facilities, while the mission, purpose and program requirements for youth facilities are very different considering their unique needs and the greater ability to positively influence their lives. Contemporary purpose-built, and client-centered youth facilities should employ trauma-informed, therapeutic, and evidence-based design principles for housing, education, vocational and life skills, mental health, and other core services and programs. The buildings, their configuration and layouts should promote daily movement, and the ability of youth to have control over day-to-day living regarding activities and human interactions. Residents should be broken down into small peer groups and accommodated in small-scale, home-like settings. The session will discuss evidence-based research and provide case studies that employ trauma-informed, normalized and therapeutic design.

Moderator

Mark McGoldrick

Head of Estates, Irish Prison Service, Ireland

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Speakers

Rob Fisch

Principal / Justice and Civic Leader, DLR Group, United States

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Marayca Lopez

Justice and Civic Planning Leader, DLR Group, United States

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Mark McGoldrick

Head of Estates, Irish Prison Service, Ireland

Mark has served with the Irish Prison Service for the past 15 years and has vast knowledge and expertise in prison design, development, and delivery of major capital projects as well as day-to-day minor works/repairs and renovations. He is also responsible for the infrastructural services and maintenance of the Estate’s portfolio.

Having an educational background in building design and construction with a particular focus on Fire Safety, Mark has held senior management positions with the Irish Prison Service, Health Service Executive (Irish Health Service), and Dublin Airport Authority.

Mark is a Chartered Engineer and in a previous roles he was the Fire Safety Manager and Capital Project Manager for the Irish Prison Service for a number of years.

In his Project Management role he has oversaw the delivery many multi million euro capital projects for example the new Cork Prison in 2016 (€49m), Castlerea Prison Phase 1 redevelopment (€4.8m) and more recently the Limerick Prison redevelopment project (€71.5m).

Today as the Head of Estates with Irish Prison Service, Mark has delivered the Estates strategic direction as set out in the IPS Strategic Plan(s). He excels at prison planning and is aware that the prison estate is complex, dynamic and ever changing to meet the needs of an ever growing prisoner population and in particular addressing the complex needs of male and female prisoners in providing suitable building environments.

Rob Fisch

Principal / Justice and Civic Leader, DLR Group, United States

Rob Fisch is a Principal and Justice Sector Leader at DLR Group, Architects, Planners and Engineers. He leads planning and design for some of the firm’s major corrections projects. Over the past 33 years, Mr. Fisch has served as a consultant to judges, prosecutors, legislators and corrections administrators, as well as other justice system stakeholders. He is widely recognized for his analytical and cognitive ability to develop a sound foundation for consensus-based needs assessments, master plans and facility solutions. His experience encompasses courts, corrections and juvenile justice. His most recent adult corrections projects are a “Re-Imagining” of a large urban jail in Pittsburgh, and a comprehensive plan to close New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex to be replaced with four new urban jails across the City. In the juvenile justice realm, he is currently leading design efforts for three juvenile detention campuses in New Jersey and planning for a new model for NYC’s Horizon juvenile detention complex. He also has extensive courthouse planning and design experience.
Mr. Fisch has a BA in Environmental Design from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is a Certified Planner by the American Planning Association and is also LEED accredited from the U.S. Green Buildings Council. He has lectured extensively at planning, design and security conferences in the US and abroad, and has been cited in various printed and electronic media on the topic of justice facility planning and design.

Marayca Lopez

Justice and Civic Planning Leader, DLR Group, United States

Dr. Lopez is an expert consultant of distinguished ability and accomplishment in the field of correctional systems and prison reform with an extensive education and international background in penology and criminology. Having exclusively dedicated her academic and professional careers to the justice sector, Marayca possesses a keen understanding of the overall criminal justice system and, more specifically, of correctional systems for both justice-involved youth and adult offenders.

Marayca’s body of work is international in scope. She has participated in a wide array of criminal justice reform projects and prison studies both in the USA and abroad (e.g. Australia, Canada, Europe, Central and South America), resulting in worldwide expertise and a deep understanding of correctional best practices, prison operations and innovative models for offender management and intervention. Marayca’s years of academic pursuit and practical application in the field of corrections have helped to nurture and refine her research and analytical skills, which are critical for criminal justice strategic planning. For the last 14 years, Marayca served as Senior Corrections Analyst and Justice Facility Planner for CGL, a preeminent justice services firm based in New York. As an authority on criminal justice matters and prisons operations, she helped to plan and program correctional facilities that are holistic in their approach, preserve human rights, promote rehabilitation and treatment, are safe and humane, and focused on innovative operational and programmatic models for positive behavioral change and successful re-entry.

Dr. Lopez areas of expertise include the development of system-wide needs assessments; policy and criminal justice data analysis; inmate population forecasting; design of alternatives to incarceration programs; organizational/cultural assessments; existing buildings functional and operational assessments; planning of new justice facilities, transition and activation services. She is an active member of the International Corrections and Prison’s Association’s (ICPA) Planning and Design Committee and has an on-going collaboration with the Correctional Association of New York (Women in Prison Project), the United Nations Friends of Corrections, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Penal Reform International (PRI) on issues related to the humanization of prisons, monitoring of incarceration practices and improvement of detention conditions She is a frequent speaker and/or lecturer in a variety of academic, professional, and international forums.

In recognition of the impact that her work has had improving life in prison through the built environment, Marayca has been recently nominated by the AIA’s Academy of Architecture for Justice to join the Leadership Group in 2021.