IMplementing structure in Vestre prison
PROJECT: MSC project
Client: vestre fængsel, kriminal forsorgen
PROduct: Concept design
PHOTO:
CHALLENGE
In Vestre Prison, there is a workshop where the inmates can get themselves a job. This job not only allows them to earn some pocket money - it’s an opportunity for them to develop valuable skills that can increase their chance of a successful resocialization on the other side of the prison walls.
The workshop depends on collaborations with external companies that outsource small tasks. But the workshop faced challenges. The constantly changing prison environment created disorganization and orders got lost. Vestre Prison was looking for help to bring organization and structure into what might be one of the most unpredictable environments:
a prison.PROCESS
To understand which challenges the prison workshop was facing, we spent two full days in the prison observing the routines of both inmates and staff, and talked with as many people as we could get to. The prison and its workshop were like nothing we had ever seen before, and our time there gave us some real eye-openers about what definitely wouldn’t work four our solution to succeed. For example, we quickly realized that digital solutions would never fly in this hands-on, manual world.
During our visits and analysis we identified two main challenges: first, orders often got lost at arrival to the workshop, and second, there was a need for better tracking of the orders in progress. The data gathered from the visits was analyzed and a conceptualization phase was initiated to come up with the best solutions. SOLUTION
We created a report of recommendations and solution proposals to solve the identified challenges. To improve the organization of newly arrived orders, one suggestion was to designate a marked “landing area” on the floor where new orders could be placed at arrival - and be properly organized later. To provide a better overview of the progress of orders, we recommended using a simple “fill-in-the-gaps” whiteboard. These improvements aimed to make the prison workshop run smoother and secure more happy company orders for this important initiative.