The Ramey Center for Restorative Justice utilizes the existing Conservation Fire Camps Program, in conjunction with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, in order to establish a humanizing minimum security prison dedicated to the training of currently incarcerated individuals as urban firefighters. This proposal challenges the mainstream understanding of the prison as a punitive space and reframes time spent while incarcerated as inherently rehabilitating. Existing in the context of widespread abuses recently uncovered from the neighboring Central Juvenile Hall, this facility will dignify currently incarcerated individuals while simultaneously training residents with invaluable urban firefighting skills. Following inmates tenure at the Ramey Center, graduates will be eligible to apply for the expungement of their criminal record through the California State Assembly Bill No. 2147, which states, “Those incarcerated individual crew members that successfully complete their service in the conservation camps … should be granted special consideration relating to their underlying criminal conviction.” Through the utilization of this legislation, The Ramey Center for Restorative Justice will successfully combat long standing cycles of recidivism, as well as begin to dismantle mass incarceration in the United States.

The Ramey Center for Restorative Justice is open to voluntary applications submitted by nonviolent offenders currently incarcerated in the California state prison system. Admitted applicants are compensated for both their training and deployment to fighting California fires. Following their release, individuals who have undergone on-site training possess CALFire FF1 & FF2 certificates, officially qualifying graduates to work in both wildland and urban firefighting divisions. This program will reduce recidivism rates in the California state prison system and prepare previously incarcerated individuals for a career in public service.

Architecturally, the project mediates between two material and formal identities. The first is demonstrated on the ground floor in the administrative and operative program. These elements are made of cast-in-place concrete and sunken into the ground. This is complemented by the housing blocks which span and cantilever over the site, celebrating their own lightness. These two identities are mediated by and define the community spaces situated between them.

The diagram generated through the three housing blocks reflects how inmates pass through and out of the Ramey Center. In the first 12 months, inmates are housed in the east-most ward and will focus on formal classes, therapy, and community outreach. The design of these residential spaces reflects the existing organizational hierarchies that newly admitted inmates will have encountered in California State Prison. This space exhibits characteristics of a conventional “270-design” that straddles between the security requirements of the facility and its inherently rehabilitative mission. This ward also includes a library at the north end, which deliberately frames views of the combustible training tower as it undergoes demonstrations.

In the following 12 months, inmates are moved to the middle ward. Here, trainees are housed in their squadrons of 6 and given collective dayrooms, as well as private quarters and restroom facilities. During this phase of the training program, inmates undergo intensive urban and structural firefighting training and will be eligible for deployment to California fires under the supervision of CALFire. Following their commencement, previously incarcerated inmates are offered the opportunity to live and work at the on-site fire station. Here, trainees operate in the civic realm side-by-side with CALFire firefighters.

This proposal humanizes the experience of incarceration and restores individuals’ right to self-sovereignty. The establishment and operation of this facility acts principally as an inquiry into the immense restorative possibilities of humanizing incarcerated individuals through space and programming. The Ramey Center for Restorative Justice will utilize the existing Conservation Fire Camps Program, in conjunction with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, to provide currently incarcerated individuals with humanizing living spaces and valuable firefighting training.