Codi Newsom, PE, LEED AP, vice president and justice market pursuit leader at STV, explores how lessons from healthcare and behavioral health design can inform the next generation of justice facilities in a new bylined article published in Correctional News.

In “Where Public Health Meets Public Safety: What Healthcare Design Can Teach Us About Modern Justice Facilities,” Newsom examines the growing intersection between healthcare and corrections and how human-centered design strategies can support safety, well-being and operational performance.

Drawing on STV’s experience across justice and behavioral health facilities, Newsom highlights how strategies involving daylight, acoustics, privacy, circulation and staff spaces can help reduce stress, improve communication and create environments that better support both the people receiving services and the professionals providing them.

“The future of justice facility design is not about making correctional environments look more like hospitals,” Newsom writes. “It is about recognizing that both settings rely on many of the same human-centered principles.”

The article points to STV’s work on projects including the Macomb County Central Intake and Assessment Center in Michigan, the Baltimore Therapeutic Treatment Center and the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. Newsom also draws on lessons from behavioral health projects including the Bronx Psychiatric Center and South Beach Psychiatric Center Residential Building in New York.

Across these environments, Newsom emphasizes the value of designing facilities that integrate access to treatment and services with operational and security requirements, while also creating better working environments for staff. The article argues that as justice facilities increasingly address complex medical and behavioral health needs, these considerations are becoming integral to how agencies plan and operate their facilities.

Read the full Correctional News article.