990-Capacity District Jail

The new District Jail at Amethi, for the Prisons Department of Uttar Pradesh with UP PWD, holds 990 prisoners on a site of about 72 acres by survey. Two layout options were studied for the irregular site before one was taken forward.

Walls within walls

Security is built up in rings. An outer boundary wall encloses the whole site and the staff housing. Inside it, a main jail wall 6.7 metres high is shadowed by a 6-metre patrolling road and a 30-metre clear zone kept free of buildings, so that every approach can be watched from the corner watch towers. Within the main wall, circle walls divide the jail into separate enclosures for men, women and young adults, and partition walls split each enclosure further, with a central watch tower, circle office and canteen at the hub.

What the jail holds

• Two-storey barracks for 120 men, and barracks of 60 for women, young adults and quarantine
• A high security barrack for 12, single rooms and a cell for sensitive prisoners
• A school for men, and a separate circle for women and young adults with its own office, school, hospital, crèche and kitchen
• A hospital ward, a kitchen block, a multipurpose hall, a bakery and work sheds
• An administrative block with video conferencing, the superintendent’s visitor room, an armoury and a visitor shed at the gate

Beyond the main wall are homes for the staff, Types II to IV, with a dormitory, a guest house, a community centre and a sports complex.

A humane language of brick

The buildings share one restrained language of red brick, deep arched verandahs and pierced brick screens along the parapets, which shade the barracks and let air through. The barracks are long two-storey blocks for 120 prisoners, with day baths and toilets beside them, so that each enclosure works as a small, ordered campus rather than a fortress.