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Should architecture be used for punishment? How do the spaces we inhabit nurture or damage us? And how can one begin to rebuild after the worst has happened?

Criminologist Yvonne Jewkes, the world's leading expert on rehabilitative prison design, grapples with these questions daily. She also faced them personally when her partner of 25 years left her amid a nightmare renovation project, just as the lockdown confined her to that very space.

Accustomed to challenging the punitive prison system to create environments that foster reflection, healing, and hope for those incarcerated, Jewkes had to apply the same compassion to herself. She reflected on what might help someone rebuild at their lowest point.

Challenging the traditional view of prisons, she takes readers through their corridors, cells, communal spaces, visitors' areas, and staffrooms, into architects' studios where these spaces are designed, and even into her own home. She demonstrates the profound importance of an architecture of hope in the face of despair.