Environmental Factors Affecting the Design of Behavioral SpacesCase study: Juvenile Center of Tehran

Juvenile Center of Tehran is a prison for minors (people who are 6-18 years old), who have committed moral or social deviance, and it is dedicated to provide care, education, rehabilitation, and refinement for delinquent children and is like a security building. Although international rules are developed for the construction and operation of such buildings, and despite the great attention of the center's officials, the interior design is in contrast to the international standards and lacks appropriate spatial qualities. According to available evidence, the impact of prisons on the conversion of criminals to ordinary citizens compared to its negative effects is negligible. In other words, the process of learning criminality is reinforced within the same organizations, in which they have been established to provide rehabilitation programs and services. Additionally, criminal labeling distorts the credibility of a person in the social environment which makes him more inclined towards criminal activities and distance him from conforming to social contracts. Prisons, regardless of their degree of success in the rehabilitation of prisoners, have prevented them from committing a crime, and the fear of unpleasant living conditions in the prison might also act as another deterrent. The prison, however, creates a paradox for criminals, as it is regarded as an unpleasant place that deprives them of their freedom: on the one hand, unfavorable living conditions might deter the potential offenders from committing a crime, on the other hand, it makes it difficult to achieve rehabilitation goals.  Although the harsher the prison conditions, the less the deterrent effect, it is different for the juvenile offenders. The delinquency of children varies based on causes, motivation, and quality of committed crimes compared to adults. They often commit offenses in a group, or with the formation of temporary gangs, whereas adults tend to act individually and have innate motivations. The types of crimes committed by children are also different from those of adults, their common crimes are the offenses against the property (such as theft and destruction of property) as well as the offenses against the person (such as direct physical harm). The project titled, "Environmental Factors Affecting the Design of Behavioral Spaces" started in 2018 in the Juvenile Center of Tehran. The aim of the project was to extract and develop principles to design detention centers as temporary housing for juvenile delinquents. Data were collected from 99 accepted questionnaires from delinquent children of the Juvenile Center of Tehran, and significant relations were observed between several design factors. There was a significant relation between child's age and selected shape, child's crime and selected color, and between child's crime and type of materials used for the housing, which approves three hypotheses that part of the design patterns could be extracted by developing field research in the intended areas as well as consulting with the specialists in behavioral sciences. Finally, this study suggests that due to the lack of a significant relationship between most factors and age groups of the crime, the test should be repeated among a group of non-delinquent children as an effective step to disseminate the findings. It is recommended to use the obtained results for a period of time in a part of the Juvenile Center.