The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls challenges new prison and jail construction through campaigns led by people directly impacted by incarceration. Our work in Vermont and Massachusetts has exposed how architects sustain and profit from incarceration while using the language of humane design to obscure its harms. From the outset, we have rejected prisons branded as “feminist,” “trauma-informed,” or “gender-responsive.” Our experience has only strengthened that position. There is no such thing as a “trauma-informed” prison.

With support from community volunteers and architects, particularly those organizing with Design As Protest, we have identified opportunities to delay or stop prison construction during the design process. Legal challenges, protests, narrative campaigns, and local zoning fights can all provide points of intervention. Understanding the design process expands organizers' tools and strengthens broader campaigns against incarceration.

Against Prison Architecture brings these lessons together in a toolkit for challenging prison and jail construction. It draws on our campaigns against new women’s prisons in Vermont and Massachusetts and includes additional strategies we have not yet tested. Its purpose is to make an opaque process accessible and place the knowledge and leadership of currently and formerly incarcerated people at the center of efforts to stop prison expansion.

This toolkit is a living document, shaped by organizers’ experience as they test these approaches, assess setbacks, and build on successes. We invite readers to contribute, experiment, and lead alongside us toward a world that invests in opportunities for our communities, not prisons.