Designing Decarceration Toolkit
The Designing Decarceration Toolkit is a participatory resource developed to help youth and staff within carceral settings reimagine and redesign their environments with dignity, agency, and care—centering the voices of those most impacted by the justice system.
Created in partnership with the Vera Institute of Justice, the MILPA Collective, and the Office of Youth and Community Restoration, the Toolkit is a call for healing and imagination. It provides a process for collaboratively shaping more humane, safe, and dignified spaces within existing detention environments, guided by the belief that everyone deserves spaces that support joy, connection, and growth.
Designed to be led by residents and staff, the Toolkit offers a framework for engaging in meaningful dialogue and creative visioning. Through a series of four workshops, participants define shared goals, reflect on their environments, reimagine space and programming, and co-create the look and feel of transformed spaces. This resource equips those most impacted by carceral environments with the tools to directly influence their surroundings and advocate for systemic change.
To support the workshop process, the Toolkit includes a set of interactive tools:
- The Designing Decarceration Comic Book guides readers through essential background on restorative justice, the origins and legacy of incarceration, and explores how design can be a tool for transformation. It introduces the Designing Decarceration Toolkit with a step-by-step overview of the design process and examples of design transformations.
- The Mission and Goals Poster helps the group define a guiding "north star" mission and establish collective goals.
- The Design Workbook helps residents reflect on their sleeping space, align it with their mission, and brainstorm ideas for changes.
- The Spaces and Activities cards encourage groups to examine how spaces are currently used and imagine new possibilities for programs and services.
- The Look and Feel Poster and Cards help brainstorm the ideal atmosphere for each space, with inspiration for color palettes, wood finishes, furniture, medium-scale details, small-scale details, and artistic expressions to bring their vision to life.
Published in 2025, the Designing Decarceration Toolkit will be piloted by youth and staff in detention facilities across California as part of a broader effort to redesign carceral spaces and reimagine the future of youth justice.
