It looks like a cluster of brick cottages, but it is really a hospital for mentally disordered offenders. The innovatory building in Northumberland was designed to reassure its patients while restraining them from absconding. It has been acclaimed asa model for f uture medium-secure units, signalling a gentler approach to those who society feels need to be locked up. Martin Spring investigates. Offenders sent to the new Kenneth Day Unit in Northumberland face being locked up for as long as five years. Yet, as they enter their new escape-proof quarters, they will hear no heavy prison gates slamming behind them and they will not be locked up in bleak cells with barred windows.
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