So, what was the prison building in ancient China like?
To answer this question, let's go through the tunnel with a thousand years' history and see how the prison has come since its birth ...
Hao Tao is the ancestor of the prison industry. What is the prison he created? According to Guang Yun's Peng's note: "Hao Tao is a prison, and its system is like a bucket. The wall is called a wall, and the door is called a door, so it is called a soil." One is to build soil as a wall to form a round earth city, and the other is to dig down to form a crypt.
Since Hao Tao's grandfather created the model mode of prison, generations of prison officials and skilled craftsmen have devoted their ingenuity and wisdom to prison architecture, and sometimes they have made original moves, perfecting and enriching the architectural concept of prison.
because the system of ancient state administrative organs was set up, trial and execution were integrated. For the convenience of arraignment and management, the judicial organs and prisons that break the prison are generally adjacent to each other. According to the architectural geomantic omen and China's traditional theory of Yin and Yang, the yamen usually faces south, and the prison is located in Kun, which belongs to Yin. Therefore, our common prison is located in the right corner of the yamen lobby, which is southwest.
The prison door is the symbol and eye of a prison. The prison door should be fastened. The main color of the gate is generally black, regardless of iron or wood, the pursuit is heavy, simple, dignified and majestic. The prison door separates yin and yang, which has solidified into the boundary between this and that, freedom and shackles, and law-abiding and illegal. The criminal's passing through this door is not only an admonition, but also a reminder, and it is also a symbol of judicial majesty!
The common decorations on prison doors and other parts are "armadillos", which are hideous and scary. Legend has it that the dragon gave birth to nine sons, and the armadillo is good at fighting injustice and can break the prison, so the prison gate is guarded by the armadillo, which means not to waste it. In addition to the armadillo, there are also armadillo, which is said to be "loyal in nature, those who can't touch straight when they are fighting, and those who can't touch straight when they are criticized", which is also a symbol of justice. These ornaments have become a static law enforcement ideological language solidified in prison buildings.
prisons are generally divided into external prisons, internal prisons and female prisons. Outside the prison, the criminals are lightly punished, and inside the prison, the criminals are severely punished. There is a "prison hall" in the courtyard of the prison, which is the living place for the prison leader and the jailer. There are many prison pavilions, which stand tall and convenient for observation, similar to the police duty room in today's prison.
In the old days, the layout of prison buildings was mostly closed round (such as clod) and square quadrangle. Later, after the prison reform movement in the late Qing Dynasty, it began to absorb foreign prison architectural ideas, including radial form, courtyard type, campus type and string type.
The Hongtong Prison in Shanxi Province, which is famous for Su San Qi Jie, is well preserved so far. The entrance is a narrow north-south passage. At both ends of the passage, there are six ordinary cells with east-west symmetry. Each cell has a low door and a small window, covering an area of only 4 square meters, and the small soil pit is less than 1 foot from the ground. In a small cell, there are at least five or six people, and at many times there are more than a dozen people. Entering Tiger Head Prison is a small quadrangle. People fall into the bottom of the well in the courtyard. There is a pillow kiln in the north of the yard, which is divided into three rooms. The cave in the east is holding felons.
Jingshi Model Prison, located near Zixin Road, Xuanwu District, Beijing, was built in the late Qing Dynasty, commonly known as the "tortoise floor" (named after the five rows of cells scattered around the central watchtower, which looks like a tortoise). The central watchtower is connected with the surrounding cells, and the guards can see the situation of each row of cells just by walking around the watchtower. There is no doubt that this design is quite scientific to ensure the prison managers to control the prison situation when the monitoring means were backward at that time.
Nanjing Prison, where the author once worked, was built in 195 and is a century-old prison. The prison has an office building, an interview room, a teaching hall, a central sentry box, a mixed prison, a solitary prison, a workshop and a watchtower. There are five prisons in the prison: East, West, South, Women's Prison and Disease Prison. The eastern and western prisons are double-fan-shaped, each with four wings, which are distinguished by the characters of "loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, love, faithfulness, righteousness, harmony and peace"; The five wings of the South Supervision Bureau are distinguished by five words: "warmth, kindness, courtesy, frugality and concession". Each prison has a dark room with no light, which is specially used to confine troublemakers. There is also a water dungeon outside the "frugal" prison to punish criminals. The hospital is located in the east, divided into mixed hospital and solitary hospital. The women's prison is located in the southeast corner, with a workplace attached, and is managed by female guards. A total of 172 prisons can hold more than three people.
it is human nature to yearn for freedom. Under the high wall, in the deep prison, and in the seemingly peaceful prison life, there is an undercurrent of criminals breaking through the wall and escaping from imprisonment at any time. Therefore, escape prevention is the highest value pursuit of prison architecture.
In order to prevent problems before they happen, prisons need to be condescending and strengthen observation to prevent accidents, which is reflected in the specific prison building design concept, that is, the walls should be high, the windows should be small, the doors should be firm, the field of vision should be open, and there should be no obstacles and no climbing objects. According to Records of Historical Records and Yin Benji, Shang Zhouwang suspected that Xibo (Zhou Wenwang) had deliberately rebelled, so he was imprisoned in a cage and wore shackles for seven years. Some people textual research said that the homonym for "cage", which means small skylight, later became. The prison's characteristics of "strict door and small window" can be seen from this name.
The Zhang Ba Wall of Shanxi Hongdong Prison is a masterpiece of escape prevention. The fence is eight feet high, commonly known as the eight walls. The height of the wall is not surprising. What is strange is that it is 1.7 meters thick, and the body is completely filled with sand. The prisoner wants to escape, and the only hope is to make a hole in the wall. However, as soon as the hole is made, the sand will flow down. The bigger the hole is, the faster the sand will flow. The prisoner wants to make a hole to escape? This road is blocked!
Some prison walls don't develop to high places, and they can also prevent escape! During the period of Emperor Liu Zhi of the Han Dynasty, Yin Shang, a cruel official, was famous for building prisons. The prison he built was called the "Tiger Cave". Its construction method is: first dig a few feet, then build a brick wall underground and cover the exit with big stones. The surrounding walls are smooth, and the thick soil is the prison wall. It is impossible to dig the wall to escape from prison, and the only exit is blocked by boulders. Every criminal who is thrown into the tiger's den, with a slate covered, is a dark world. Even with all kinds of martial arts, it is impossible to escape. Dragon's Pool and Tiger's Cave probably have a certain literary origin with this tiger's cave prison.
In addition to escape prevention, prisons should also consider the requirements of preventing criminals from committing suicide and fire fighting in prisons. For example, the well in Hutou Prison of Hongdong Prison has a diameter of only 23 cm and a depth of only seven feet. It is small and exquisite, and small buckets are used to draw water to prevent criminals from committing suicide. Every old prison yard basically has a pool or water tank, which is not only to solve the draught, but also to focus on fire control.
The prison gate is only open to the living. Criminals are put in prison, put on trial, released, delivered and taken to the execution ground for beheading, and enter and leave through the gate. When a criminal is killed, he is pulled out from the "corpse dragging hole" on the west side of the prison wall.
Old-style prisons are mostly narrow, cramped, dark, damp and cold. Many literary works and historical records have many descriptions about this. For example, Fang Bao's "Miscellaneous Notes in Prison" describes that all the rooms in the prison are four rooms without windows, and the air is dirty. There are often more than 2 prisoners in the cell. "The poor people lie on the ground in the middle of winter, and the spring air is not contagious." Because according to the prison management system, the prison door is not opened at night, and the urine is in the room. If a criminal dies at night, "the living and the dead are close to each other." This design concept is based on the following factors:
First of all, the criminals should have a strong visual impact after they enter the prison door, and they should feel depressed, constricted and strict. The main color is mainly cool, so as to create a mysterious and horrible feeling of "unpredictable power", which will make the criminals psychologically inferior and naturally produce the idea of obedience and obedience, which is beneficial to the prison's management of criminals.
Secondly, due to the punitive consideration of punishment, the purpose of "controlling life and death, knowing the source of good and evil, cutting evil and punishing violence, and forbidding people from doing wrong" (Criminal Law Records of Sui Shu) is to worsen the living and living environment, so as to enhance the deterrence and warning to society and prevent crime to the greatest extent. In this respect, there is still the gene of "homomorphic revenge" in primitive society.
Third, it is necessary to strengthen the basic performance of prisons, such as supervision, escape prevention, suicide prevention, fire fighting and riot prevention. This is determined by the nature of the prison.
things change, time and space flow.
when we pay attention to the current prison architecture, we will find that the design concept of prison architecture has changed completely unconsciously, and many old ideas have been subverted. In order to strengthen the respect for prisoners' education and basic human rights, many prisons have begun to move towards an open, civilized and tidy side while maintaining their basic functions in design. This also confirms the sentence: society is developing and civilization is progressing, and prisons are no exception.