A Visionary Design for Mental Health in Correctional Settings
By Kat Balster
The design and construction of the Northwest Indiana Correctional Facility in Westville, Ind., represents an innovative approach to housing and supporting incarcerated people with mental health and addiction treatment needs. Spanning more than 1.4 million square feet, the facility will include 23 new buildings and accommodate 4,208 beds, with 242 beds specifically dedicated to mental health care. As part of a $1.2 billion reconstruction effort, the project reflects a major architectural and cultural shift toward trauma-informed care, dignity and therapeutic correctional design. The project team includes Elevatus Architecture, owner’s representative M-H Group, construction partners Garmong, Granger, and F.A. Wilhelm, with Pauly Jail providing detention equipment and Accurate Controls overseeing security electronics.
A Vision for Mental Health Awareness in Correctional Facilities
One of the most ambitious features of the project is the creation of specialized mental health units and addiction recovery housing that depart from traditional punitive models. These spaces are intentionally crafted to encourage safety, stability and healing.
“Mental health has been a subject that has definitely increased in the past decade. Everyone’s becoming more aware of the issues,” said Craig Armstrong, senior project manager at Elevatus Architecture. “With that has come some identification that there are challenges with how to handle those particular individuals.”
The facility will feature four to five levels of mental health care, each corresponding to different levels of acuity. This design enables staff to tailor treatment and programming to individual needs, while also creating a progression model for residents.
“The way [residents] interact with each other as peers within that environment is different,” Armstrong explained. “It also promotes them wanting to get to the lower acuity [levels] because they’re afforded more amenities, more opportunities for things, so that they might be able to be reintroduced to the general population.”
The southern half of the building is dedicated to substance use and addiction recovery, a distinction that Armstrong said is essential.
“We also identified that there needed to be a difference between mental health and addiction recovery because those needs between the two are different,” he added.
Sensory Environments Designed to Support Mental Health
To meet those needs, the facility includes a range of specialized features: sensory-friendly materials, dimmable and tunable lighting, acoustic control and nature-inspired colors and murals. These elements contribute to the core strategy of creating therapeutic correctional environments. TJ Rogers, president and owner of Accurate Controls, played a key role in creating resident-controlled sensory features.
“Now they can control their environment. They can control the sounds. They can control the light level,” Rogers said. “They can control the light color so they can create an environment that’s more therapeutic.”
Keith Ivkovich, senior project manager at Granger Construction, highlighted the significance of these user-controlled features.
“Giving [residents] a sense of autonomy and control over their ambient surroundings—changes the dynamic of mental healthcare in the corrections world,” Ivkovich said. “Even just that little bit of autonomy—that ‘I want the lights on or off’—it’s very important.”
Constructing Correctional Facilities to Prioritize Inmate Mental Health
Instead of the standard steel cells used in most of the facility, the mental health cells are built using masonry construction to create a softer, less institutional environment.
“We’re trying to facilitate rehabilitation in those units. There’s only so much you can do to a steel cell to make it feel comfortable,” Armstrong said. “Having a masonry cell doesn’t soften the security measures, but it softens the feel from the occupant [perspective].”
Deanna Dwenger Psy.D., formerly with the Indiana Department of Correction and now chief behavioral health advisor with Elevatus Architecture, provided critical guidance to ensure the spaces aligned with psychological best practices.
“We are serving people, not bodies,” Dwenger said. “These people have been through a lot,” she said. “We’re actually trying to make a difference. That’s where Elevatus is going—and that’s why I joined them.”
Jared Bailey, vice president of operations at Pauly Jail Building Company, which served as the detention equipment contractor for the project, praised the state’s commitment to innovation.
“They have a soft furniture aspect, a detention-grade skylight and control for the inmates—sound, light and smell within the cells,” Bailey said.
Indiana’s Systemic Shift Toward Mental Health and Wellness
Kevin Orme, executive director of construction services at the Indiana Department of Correction, underscored the urgency of these reforms, noting that the state is experiencing an influx of inmates who have severe mental health issues and substance use struggles.
“The way I can help the mental health practitioners is to give them the right space to accomplish their mission,” Orme said.
The Northwest Indiana Correctional Facility will feature 242 dedicated mental health cells, along with multiple therapeutic dayrooms scaled for different levels of acuity. According to Armstrong, each environment was carefully considered not just for safety, but to promote psychological progress.
“This is the first time I’ve seen this,” said Ivkovich. “We spent a lot of time figuring out how to build this into the cell. How it would be controlled through the security electronics. It’s a game-changer.”
The Future of Mental Health Care in Correctional Design
With this forward-thinking model, the Northwest Indiana Correctional Facility sets a new national standard for integrating mental health care in correctional design, reshaping how prisons can function as places of restoration, not just confinement. The facility is more than just a correctional institution—it represents a vision for the future. One that prioritizes dignity in incarceration, inmate mental health and autonomy within secure environments. As Dwenger put it, “If we don’t design for humanity, we’re failing everyone.”
Stay tuned for more information on this project in the May/June edition of Correctional News.