'GET SMART QUICK' DESIGN GUIDE

#1 – The 'L' Rule (aka. NO legs)

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Furniture legs are dangerous. Legs can be broken off and used for dangerous things. Legs are a typical feature of your normal everyday furniture typology, but prison isn't your normal everyday environment. You should aim to design out things that can be broken off and wielded. Also, long skinny things can be made into long pointy things. You might think, 'This metal bar is welded. There's no way somebody can rip this off.' Well, this type of thing happens. Consider other options before going full-Scandinavian with your design. This brings us to rule number #2.

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#2 – If it can be broken off and wielded with one hand, it's probably the wrong size or shape... and it's probably a leg.

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A good way to put into perspective what can be used as a weapon with relative ease is to ask yourself, 'How easy would it be to hold in one hand and swing?' It's a tricky problem to consider. For example, cupboard doors are difficult to swing with one hand, but are still used with two hands as effective weapons. Echoing what was stated at the beginning, there are no clear, straightforward solutions, and in this case, the point is to limit opportunities to use objects as weapons.

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#3 – Ligature points are high and low

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Ligature points are any features in an environment which could be used to support a noose or other strangulation devices. Just be aware that someone doesn't need to be dangling with their feet off the ground to stop breathing. People can strangle themselves while on their knees, using a low positioned, heavy or stable object to act as an anchor point for the strangulation device. 

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#4 – Can it last for 5-7 minutes of rage?

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This is an MoJ baseline testing criteria when attack testing cell furniture. You'll hear this often: 'If a prisoner really wants to break something, they're going to find a way'. There's only so much you can do to deter abuse, but this 5 to 7 minute window, in theory, is about the amount of time it would take for someone to calm down from the most destructive and violent phase of their anger. 

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#5: Make it easy to clean

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When you're on 23 hour bang up, you can only do so many things to pass the time. Maintaining a clean cell is important to many prisoners and it provides a sense of ownership and order in their life. Often times cell furniture is in very poor condition, but prisoners do what they can to make it nice, sometimes polishing it for hours and hours. Making the cell furniture easy to clean and making sure it looks clean after it has been cleaned, goes a long way in making life in confinement a little more tolerable.

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#6 – Stillages: the cage test

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HMP makes products in prisons and distributes these products to other prisons across the UK. For the most part, everything is put into metal cages called stillages that stack when in storage or in transport on a lorry. Ideally, you want your new cell furniture design to match the current stillage capacity of the existing furniture item it is replacing. 

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#7 – Smoke or fire?

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HMP products especially, those found within the cell, adhere to some of the strictest fire and safety regulations. However, in some cases between smoke and fire, the latter is the lesser of two evils. Materials that smoke but don't hold a flame may produce toxic (and potentially lethal) fumes. In these circumstances, a material that holds a small flame but doesn't produce large amounts of toxic fumes, might be justifiable. A good example of this is the existing plastic prison chair, made of toughened grade polypropylene. Even though this material holds a small flame when burning, it was the preferred option over high-density polyethylene (HDPE) which doesn't hold a flame but produces lethal quantities of toxic fumes.

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#8 – What happens if they eat it?

 

This is a legitimate concern that needs to be considered. 

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#9 – Form follows function: Avoid designing voids, cavities and having thick sections of material

 

Cell furniture products are subjected to unique scenarios of use, misuse and abuse that are simply not encountered in non-prison contexts. The affordances designed into the products that inhabit these spaces need to be heavily scrutinised and considered against all types of scenarios, if nothing more than for the health and safety of prison staff and prisoners alike. Avoid designing voids and cavities as these are ideal hiding spaces. Similarly, thick sections of material can be dug into and carved out to create voids and cavities. You might think that the material around the void will be difficult to tamper, but you should operate from the mindset that with time and determination, someone will find a way to abuse this feature. Prisoners are ingenious and creative, and we’ve heard stories of how prisoners have created nearly imperceptible false-fronts in materials such as wood, plastic and even metal. Prison officers fear what they cannot see and they are aware how the current furniture items can be abused to conceal objects that put their lives in danger. 
 

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#10 – Furniture can be too robust

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It sounds contradictory to the objective, but furniture that is too strong – that can’t be broken – might not be suitable for prison cells. Consider barricading in which prisoners stack their furniture from the cell door to the opposite wall. If prisoners protesting via barricade refuse to move the furniture, prison security can remove the door and attempt to destroy the barricade with tools (e.g. sledgehammers, axes, etc.). But when the furniture is strong enough to withstand those tools, this is where we witness the Achilles heel of overly robust furniture. For example, the MoJ had designed a metal bunk bed prototype closely resembling the current whitewood bunk bed. The metal bed was so robust that during testing, security could not break it down quick enough and with standard equipment. As a result the prototype failed. In other cases, furniture that is very difficult to destroy and abuse, like the current plastic in-cell chair, is very robust and safe, but safety comes at a cost of ergonomics and consequently there is an overwhelming disdain for this chair by prisoners.