1,000-Capacity District Jail

The new District Jail at Mahoba, for the Prisons Department of Uttar Pradesh with UP PWD, stands about 5 kilometres from the town on a site of about 64 acres. The ground falls 10 to 15 metres across the site, so the survey came first: the low-lying areas were kept free of buildings, and the jail was laid out along the higher ground.

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, isolation cells, single and double rooms
• A pathshala, a legal room, a vocational lab, a 24-bed hospital and a women’s hospital with a crèche
• A kitchen block, a multipurpose hall, a bakery and agricultural land
• An administrative block with video conferencing and a visitor shed at the gate

Beyond the main wall are homes for the staff, Types I to III, with a dormitory, a guest house, a community centre and a sports complex. The buildings total about 37,700 square metres.

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.