Rowan Prady

Liminal Justice represents a thematic triangulation between violence, escapism and landscape. Escapism is defined as contextual evasion and acts of violence, seen as a specific behavioural reflex resulting from difficulty responding to situational context, are read as symptomatic of an escapist tendency. The Conservative government states that committing a crime is always a choice, and Springwell Reformatory positions itself in stark opposition – the way a society deals with the transgressions of its citizens reflects moral questions of culpability in a climate where the notion of true choice is obsolete.

Sited in the Metropolitan Green Belt, the reformative landscape mediates the behavioural reflex of the individual during the liminal phase of separation, whilst staging architectural intervention in an archive of failed attempts at dual penitentiary and societal reform. The use of indefinite sentencing cannot anticipate successful reform so long as a system clouded by economic austerity, party politics and a media-driven retributive urge prevails. Responding to factors that increase propensity to commit violent crime – eurological disorder, childhood trauma, and impoverished circumstance; the field of icons aims to prevent further violent impulse, presenting a fundamentally optimistic alternative model for juvenile correction. Springwell Reformatory initiates a monumental and symbiotic reflection on the violent behaviour of individuals as well as the societal jurisdiction that deigns to imprison them.