Prisoners Living Life In Pink

How did we end up with pink prison cells?

In the last few years, it’s become more and more common to have pink cells in prisons in an attempt to mitigate the violent behaviours of inmates.

Where did this idea come from? Certainly, convicts are not living their life in pink. So, how come many Western countries have adopted this peculiar way to calm down violent behaviours?

Colour psychology

Anyone who works in marketing, visual merchandising, even interior design knows for sure that colours play a big part in influencing our feelings.

The theory of colour psychology tries to explain the correlations between specific colours and emotions they evoke in the subject. Many of these associations are universal because of colours’ effect on the brain, while others are strictly related to cultural and personal experiences.

Colours affect every aspect of our lives: traffic lights and signs are an obvious example of what different colours mean to us. The clothing we choose to wear for work will give other people a clear idea of who we are. Here, we often chose black over other colours because it symbolises authority.

Even the apps icons on our phones are carefully selected to arouse certain feelings in the users. Blue is often associated with trust and honesty, green with reliability and safety. Orange draws attention and stimulates optimistic and fun sensations.

While many modern studies focused their attention on colour psychology, deeper research is still needed to find out more about the origin of colour associations and their effects on the human psyche.

Baker-Miller pink

So, how did we get from colour psychology to paint our prisons pink?

It all started in 1979 with the study “Tranquilizing Effect of Color Reduces Aggressive Behavior and Potential Violence” by Alexander G. Schauss. In this analysis, Schauss tested the calming effect of the colour pink on 153 people, discovering that only 0.01% of subjects didn’t experience a weakening effect when showed the colour pink. Almost all the participants in the experiment reported a reduced muscular strength when seeing the colour pink, proving Schauss’ theory.

In the same year, Schauss carried on his investigation on the effects of pink at the U.S. Naval Correctional Center in Seattle, where some holding cells for particularly violent inmates were painted in this colour.

The results further confirmed the theory that the shade had a pacifying effect on detainees. A memorandum of the facility states: “the new confined only required a maximum of 15 minutes of exposure to ensure that the potential for violent or aggressive behaviour had been reduced. The effect continues for fully thirty minutes after release from the cell”.

The Baker-Miller pink was born, named after the two commanding officers of the facility where the experiment was carried out.

Further studies

In about 30 years after Schauss studies were published, one in five Swiss prisons and police stations had at least one pink cell for their inmates. And the number was growing across Western Europe and the US.

Even though Schauss himself expressed some concerns about the previously proven effects of pink on aggressive behaviour, it was only in 2014 that Oliver Genschow and his colleagues repeated the experiment with a more scientific approach.

Placing two groups of inmates in a different colour room, one white and one pink didn’t show any meaningful difference in the aggressive behaviour of subjects.

In 2011, Daniela Späth carried out a similar experiment, with a different shade of pink called “Cool Down Pink”. For four years, she collaborated with 10 Swiss prisons to paint some of their cells and actually discovered that the aggressiveness levels decreased more rapidly in inmates, and relaxing occurred quicker.

Conclusion

To this date, we would need more scientific data to prove the efficiency of pink in reducing aggressive behaviours. Previous studies show different and even opposite outcomes. Also, factors of aggressiveness are not easily measured in a scientific method.

One major hindrance in this theory could be the mainstream association of pink with everything feminine. Genschow states in his study that sometimes detention in a pink cell could even increase violent behaviour in inmates, and have deep psychological effects.

“One could speculate whether pink detention cells may even have negative (psychological) effects. Past research has indicated that the color pink is mainly associated with girls and women (Alexander, 2003; Bridges, 1993) and more preferred by girls and women than by men (Chiu et al., 2006). Being placed in a pink detention cell may thus attack inmates’ perceived manhood and/or cause feelings of humiliation.”

If you want to find out more about this, check out this short video on the history of Baker-Miller pink.

Thanks for reading!