Design Research

POLICE STATION

Time saver

Accessibility

 Instead of one street, the location should be accessible from two. In the event that one of the
entrances is temporarily closed, other entrances and exits should be provided for police
vehicles to ensure fast entry and egress to and from the site.

Design of Police Building

 functional relationships
o Administrative line officers should be clustered together. Booking, identification, and
detention procedures must be linked in such a way that time and travel distance are
reduced in order to conserve staff resources and avoid security issues.
 Public Considerations
o To avoid exposing inmates to the public as well as eliminating the chance of harm to
either, public access should not conflict with inmate passages or places.
 General Design Considerations
o Parking facilities must accommodate vehicles from agencies that use the facility, on-
duty workers, clients, and guests, as well as sufficient space for emergency needs. There
should be a separation between official public needs. The location of parking spaces
should provide easy access to the building depending on the type of use.
 Communications, Records, and Evidence
o Radio consoles, monitoring units, teletype machines, alarm systems, and telephones,
should be kept in an air-conditioned, acoustically treated room.
o Noise-generating machines should be kept in acoustically protected cabinets within the
services area.
 Detention and Related Facilities
o Provisions should be made for convicts to be kept in separate security locations before
being booked in order to prevent them from disposing of potential evidence or
transmitting dangerous weapons.
o All but audible and visual isolation between visitors' and attorneys' rooms is required
between prisoner and the visitor
o Within the booking area, preferably under a desk, a separate and safe storage place for
convict's personal belongings should be provided.
o A gun receiving and storage space at the jail entrance ought to be added as well, to
ensure police officers can turn in their guns to the officer in command before entering
the detention area.
o The facility must possess a special portable extension telephone for prisoner usage and
placed in a secure and private spot within the confinement area.
 Provisions for Multiple Use
 o Classrooms, assembly areas, and other spaces can be designed to build a complex of
interconnected multifunctional facilities with enough flexibility to be used for roll call,
training classes, police community relations meetings, public hearings, scout troop
meetings, and other functions.
 Service Facilities
o The communications center and the records office must be positioned next to each
other, facilities for direct data transfer must be provided during hours when clerks are
on duty in the records office.
o The property room should also be near the records center and the public information
counter or desk.
o Restrooms, filing cabinets, and additional employee space should be provided near the
communications center during intense work periods.
 Administrative and Investigative Offices
o The head of police and top-level command officers should have a certain amount of
mobility and privacy, depending on the size of the department.
o For the same reasons, the offices of the youth unit, the vice unit, and the intelligence
unit should be positioned away from major routes of traffic. They should, be located
near the police officers' entrance to the records area.
o The arrangement of investigators' work areas should be straightforward and free of the
honeycomb or cubbyhole style that is common in many stations.
o Investigators should have individual lockers for clothing and equipment needed for daily
work, as well as a small filing cabinet for paperwork related to current cases.
o Other administrative offices, such as those used for training people, planning personnel,
and internal affairs personnel, should also be included in the same location so that the
command staff is adjacent to these support units. These working rooms should likewise
be mostly open, with only a few secluded spaces.
o There must be enough room for numerous inmates to be taken from the prisoner van
without harming the officers involved. This portion should preferably not be seen from
the rest of the garage.
 Exterior Design Philosophy
o The police station should appear to the public as a welcoming, businesslike, and professional
building complex.
o The police station should be made of noncombustible materials.
o All or most of the glass areas, both inside and outside, should be bullet-resistant.
o The so-called "windowless" structure may possess a glass, but it's arranged in such a way
that none of the internal activity can be seen from the outside.
o The facility should be easily accessible, with plenty of public and private parking. Landscape
design, flagpoles, and identifying lighting should be both aesthetic and functional
components of the building.
 Horizontal Plan
o The horizontal design idea reduces necessity for stairwells and elevators that, when
used in transporting inmates, consider the possibility of hazards in planting of bombs,
flames, and so on. The building with the fewest floors is less costly to supervise since it
requires personnel to supervise it.
 Human Needs
o A law enforcement agency interacts with a large number of people. They can, however,
be divided into three categories:

-Personnel from the department

-The general public

-Prisoners

 Construction Building Code

o The structure should be fire resistant, well-lit, heated, and ventilated. The plans should
be laid out in such a way that smoke and hot gases from cooking or heating devices do
not travel through the structure at any time.
o Standpipes and other fire safety equipment such as hose, extinguishers, and alarms
must be accessible.
o If the structure has two or more levels, two or more enclosed stairways should be
provided in accordance with construction codes to avoid fire concerns.
 Facilities
1. Windows
 Windows close to jail quarters should have steel bars or steel detention sash with
screening devices and be inaccessible to prisoners.
2. Storage
 For cash and important items, a secure storage area should be provided.
3. Firearms
 Firearms, weapons, and drugs should be kept in strong, securely sealed cabinets
that are inaccessible to prisoners. It should be stored in areas away from jail cells
and passageways.
4. Firefighting Apparatus
 Exposed electrical installations, wood dividers, straw ticks, paper, trash, and other
flammable materials should be avoided. Fire hoses in lockable cabinets should be
accessible for inspection by jail personnel.
5. Detective Division
 There should be a central detective office large enough to accommodate all
detectives for briefings and directions. Furthermore, there should be modest rooms
adjacent to the main detective office that can be used for interrogation.
6. Show-up Room
 Desired, to be positioned in such a way that inmates could shuttled back and forth
from the confinement quarters to without coming into contact with the general
public.
7. Visitors' Roost
 A visiting room should be available to encourage informal conversations under
sufficient supervision. The convict's entrance should be on the jail side, while the
visitors' and attorneys' entrances should be on the public side. . A fine mesh double
screening or heavy plate glass windows should be used to separate prisoners and
guests inside the room.
8. Interview Room
 Attorneys, probation officials, and social welfare professionals should have their
own interview space.
9. Examining Room
 If correctly positioned, this chamber can also be used as an examination room for
the medical officer. For medical facilities, a locked steel cabinet for medical
equipment can be mounted on the wall in one of the examination rooms.
10. Kitchen
 A refrigerated room and a locked storage closet should be provided. The kitchen
should have a stove for top and oven cooking.
 If it is a two-story building, a single kitchen on the first floor is preferred, with
dumbwaiters and a pantry on the second story.
11. Laundry
 Should be included in the jail, along with modern-style equipment and a
sterilizer for clothing and bedding.
12. Janitor's Slop Sink
 Should be placed in a sufficiently large open area to ensure that mops and
cleaning supplies can be hung on racks exposed to sunlight and air. This janitor's
room should be well ventilated and off-limits to inmates.
13. Segregation
 Male and female convicts must be kept apart at all times. Other separations are
required. Inmates who are mentally ill, contagious disease carriers, and known
sex perverts must be segregated.
14. Cells
 The cells should be designed to provide optimum security for prisoners serving
sentence.
 Individual cells are recommended for tiny jails with limited accommodations.
 Cells for women inmates, where women are rarely confined, can be utilized for
juveniles.
15. Cell Furniture
 The cell beds should be metal and come with a clean mattress, clean sheets, a
mattress cover, blankets, a pillow, and a pillowcase.
 The toilet and washbowl should be prison-style.
16. Lighting
 the convicts' living quarters should have access to natural light, and the walls
should be painted in light colors. Where illumination is dependent on electrical
fixtures, the fixtures should be built-in, tamperproof, and have tempered plate
glass fronts for bulb protection.
17. Receiving Garage
 A receiving garage should be created adjacent to or as part of the structure, to
ensure cars may drive in directly from the street or alley.
 This garage should not be utilized for parking, but rather for transporting
inmates who have been brought to the police station.
 The jail elevator should be located so that it is easily accessible from this garage.