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> There other countries where incarceration works, for example Norway [1] The Nordic model works in Norway because of Norway's society and culture. It wouldn't

> There other countries where incarceration works, for example Norway [1] The Nordic model works in Norway because of Norway's society and culture. It wouldn't work in US, or South Africa or El Salvador because of what level of violence is deemed acceptable in those countries. You can try to transpose the Nordic model in US all you want it is not going to work because these are different societies bound by different civil contracts and cultures. Plenty of societies and countries have a prison system that doesn't focus on rehabilitation,at all, yet the level of violence is still inferior to US by a long shot.

realusername 8y ago
> It wouldn't work in US, or South Africa or El Salvador because of what level of violence is deemed acceptable in those countries. The US prison system and the harsh police also contribute to violence, people are more violent because you are violent with them, it works as a feedback loop.
- nostalgeek 8y ago
  > The US prison system and the harsh police also contribute to violence, people are more violent because you are violent with them, it works as a feedback loop. chicken and egg problem. I don't think US society was ever "not violent". It isn't more violent today than it was in the 80's at least.
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    Great, so let's call it a day then, no need to try. This is fine.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I'm not sure this hypothesis holds up. For instance consider places like Singapore. It is relentlessly brutal against criminals. Even relatively petty crime like vandalism is subject to corporal punishment - caning. Yet there is no feedback loop - the country has practically no crime, and I think this is in large part thanks to the people and culture of the area. Or consider Japan. They have a 99% conviction rate, and a big part of that is because it's an open secret that police will torture confessions out of people they arrest. But once again a different people with a different culture and we see an incredibly low crime rate. For this matter we can perhaps even look at the US! Violent crime rates have been plummeting since the early 90s even though that has been paired with a sharp increase in the public perception of police violence. If there was a feedback loop then we would expect it to have been going sharply in the other direction!
  - vkou 8y ago
    Police in Japan deliberately ignore many crimes, to make the numbers look good. Also, torturing people into confessions is a great idea, until you nab the wrong person. But it sure drives the conviction statistics up! This isn't a question of culture, this is simply a case of the police fudging the numbers to make themselves look good. The Soviet Union also had "zero crime", and a 99% conviction rate, but unlike Japan, nobody took those bullshit claims seriously.
    - arcticbull 8y ago
      So does China! 99.93% conviction rate last year. That's 3 nines! Stellar, those police get it right basically all the time! [1] Hong Kong OTOH is between 53.9% and 79% [2]. Sad. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/11/china-scored-99-9-percent-conviction-rate-last-year/?utm_term=.77ead0d3b0f2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/1... [2] http://www.hk-lawyer.org/content/conviction-rates http://www.hk-lawyer.org/content/conviction-rates
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      I was not stating it was a good thing. It means that Japan is treating people they suspect of crimes absolutely awfully. The hypothesis I was responding to is that harsh treatment of suspects is reciprocated with harsh treatment towards police from future suspects. I'm not sure this is substantiated.
    - iguy 8y ago
      The 99% obviously means that (at best!) that they don't bring cases they may lose to trial, and isn't really an achievement. But GGP realusername's claim was that brutal policing drives crime. Places which have brutal policing and genuinely low crime are some evidence against this, even if you don't wish to emulate the brutality. (Whether the USSR had low levels of street crime I actually don't know -- is this known? But few deny that Japan and Singapore are pretty damn safe.)
amarant 8y ago
[citation needed] you won't know if it works until you try, has there been any experimental applications of the nordic model in the US that show it to be uneffective? there has been at least one in canada that I'm aware of,(admittedly only targeting youth offenders, so not conclusive, but at least an indication I guess) and the results were pretty good: https://theconversation.com/judges-sentence-youth-offenders-to-chess-with-promising-results-96172 https://theconversation.com/judges-sentence-youth-offenders-... edit to add, I'm not sure you can call the Canadian trail a copy of "the nordic system" but it is similar to it in that it focuses on rehab rather than punishment. I like to think you could adapt from "the nordic system" to make it work in the us.
- nostalgeek 8y ago
  > [citation needed] Norway doesn't have a network of violent gangs sitting in their prisons. > I'm not sure you can call the Canadian Canada is mostly on the path to copy US when it comes to gang violence.
  - aqme28 8y ago
    > Norway doesn't have a network of violent gangs sitting in their prisons. Is this something that allows them to have a rehabilitative prison system, or something that is caused by having a rehabilitative prison system?
    - ams6110 8y ago
      Its something that is caused by the vast majority of people in the country being white Norwegian citizens. They have very few people (comparatively) who are social outcasts on the basis of being from somewhere else or not speaking the language or being a different color or all three. There is much less need for gangs as an alternative path to acceptance by a group.
      - braythwayt 8y ago
        There are lots and lots of very violent criminal gangs made up of white people from the US who speak English. Many of them are, in fact, white supremacist gangs. I do not see any evidence that gangs have anything to do with being immigrants. I think gangs have something to do with a culture having an underclass.
iguy 8y ago
For an interesting discussion of this, I recommend this discussion of Glenn Loury with Adaner Usmani. https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/53070 https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/53070 Usmani believes that something like the Nordic model would work in the US. I don't think Loury is buying any of it (and he knows quite a bit about this topic, quantitatively too) but is a model of polite, serious, engagement.
- gremlinsinc 8y ago
  Do you think a not-for-profit company could start a prison, modeled after a nordic 'open' prison, as a sort of 'trial' and get support in a state to try it out? I think the only way to make inroads might be to somewhat circumvent the government. Build something that has a track record of true reform, and maybe eventually hold a monopoly on prisons that actually work and serve the purpose of reform over 'penance'.
  - iguy 8y ago
    This is an interesting thought. If the US is going to contract out its prison-keeping (as it does, and at spectacularly high costs) then it would be great if this could allow for a wide variety of experiments. Charter Prisons, perhaps. I don't know exactly how you'd organise this, I guess you want to score them by recidivism rates (and high-school diplomas?) with massive penalties for escapes / deaths etc? Unlike charter schools you could assign prisoners truly randomly, statewide, for good statistics. No doubt there are lessons to be learned from many countries' systems. Maybe we should encourage foreign companies to enter this market. I'm personally dubious that the Nordics have some secret sauce (to adapt Milton Friedman's quip, have you heard about the Swedish-American prison gangs?) but would love to be proven wrong.
    - gremlinsinc 8y ago
      I like the idea of a more-ethical not-for-profit, that is required to spend or lose all money at end of year, and has a CEO cap of say 150x employee average. Could have some sort of investment scheme setup too, that inmates can buy into, and some of the 'left-over' could go into that giving them a little nest egg when they get out to cushion themselves and prevent recidivism. The 'bonus' could be tied to performance/behavior/etc... and it could be 'will-able'.. in case you're a lifer, or die in prison, your family will have some benefit. A lot of poverty is because the breadwinner is in prison...if the breadwinner could still win bread while in prison it might positively effect poverty quite a bit.
arcticbull 8y ago
The US prison system is fantastic at one thing: teaching anyone who goes in how to be a criminal. You dehumanize people, pack them in tight, 2-to-a-cell in solitary confinement, and force them to fight each other to survive. They gang up for self defense, fall into negative paths and those follow them outside. They can't get jobs outside because nobody in the US will hire a criminal. Now they have no money, nowhere to live, no support system, no healthcare (because God forbid) and no way to make a living. They didn't learn to survive outside, they commit crimes and they're back in. 75% recidivism [1] seems almost low for such a process doesn't it? At least inside they get food, housing, healthcare and work - talk about socialism. Which other societies can you point to that don't have prison systems that focus on rehabilitation? Do you have data that shows their recidivism rates are lower? People don't want to be criminals, they want to live, but they don't all know how. Clearly the system you advocate is an abject failure at preventing crime, maybe it's time to open yourself up to new processes? It literally can't get much worse. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is-so-successful-2014-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is...
- nostalgeek 8y ago
  > Clearly the system you advocate is an abject failure at preventing crime, maybe it's time to open yourself up to new processes? It literally can't get much worse. I advocated for nothing, if you read my message I'm not saying one system is better than the other. I'm just saying adopting the nordic model isn't going to work with a society with such a level of violence like the USA. > People don't want to be criminals, they want to live, but they don't all know how. Plenty of people want to make money the easiest way possible, and if it involves committing crimes like murdering people they'll do that. You are assuming everybody is like you and follow basic humanism. Well some don't.
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    How do you know the Nordic model won't work if you don't try it? Do you have data to indicate that Nordic model prisons don't work if there's violence? Citation needed or it's not a helpful anecdote. Did you know they're trying it in North Dakota? [1] By making this kind of unsubstantiated claim in support of the system as-is without making any suggestions of your own you're implicitly advocating for the status quo. And of course some people have severe criminality issues but IMO those should be treated. Even treated as mental health issues. [1] https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2017/07/north-dakota-norway-prisons-experiment/ https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2017/07/north-dako...
zumu 8y ago
> You can try to transpose the Nordic model in US all you want it is not going to work because these are different societies bound by different civil contracts and cultures. The point isn't we should perfectly copy the "Nordic model" -- the point is criminals in the US would be better rehabilitated if we tried to rehabilitate them.

realusername 8y ago

> It wouldn't work in US, or South Africa or El Salvador because of what level of violence is deemed acceptable in those countries. The US prison system and the harsh police also contribute to violence, people are more violent because you are violent with them, it works as a feedback loop.

nostalgeek 8y ago
> The US prison system and the harsh police also contribute to violence, people are more violent because you are violent with them, it works as a feedback loop. chicken and egg problem. I don't think US society was ever "not violent". It isn't more violent today than it was in the 80's at least.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  Great, so let's call it a day then, no need to try. This is fine.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I'm not sure this hypothesis holds up. For instance consider places like Singapore. It is relentlessly brutal against criminals. Even relatively petty crime like vandalism is subject to corporal punishment - caning. Yet there is no feedback loop - the country has practically no crime, and I think this is in large part thanks to the people and culture of the area. Or consider Japan. They have a 99% conviction rate, and a big part of that is because it's an open secret that police will torture confessions out of people they arrest. But once again a different people with a different culture and we see an incredibly low crime rate. For this matter we can perhaps even look at the US! Violent crime rates have been plummeting since the early 90s even though that has been paired with a sharp increase in the public perception of police violence. If there was a feedback loop then we would expect it to have been going sharply in the other direction!
- vkou 8y ago
  Police in Japan deliberately ignore many crimes, to make the numbers look good. Also, torturing people into confessions is a great idea, until you nab the wrong person. But it sure drives the conviction statistics up! This isn't a question of culture, this is simply a case of the police fudging the numbers to make themselves look good. The Soviet Union also had "zero crime", and a 99% conviction rate, but unlike Japan, nobody took those bullshit claims seriously.
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    So does China! 99.93% conviction rate last year. That's 3 nines! Stellar, those police get it right basically all the time! [1] Hong Kong OTOH is between 53.9% and 79% [2]. Sad. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/11/china-scored-99-9-percent-conviction-rate-last-year/?utm_term=.77ead0d3b0f2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/1... [2] http://www.hk-lawyer.org/content/conviction-rates http://www.hk-lawyer.org/content/conviction-rates
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    I was not stating it was a good thing. It means that Japan is treating people they suspect of crimes absolutely awfully. The hypothesis I was responding to is that harsh treatment of suspects is reciprocated with harsh treatment towards police from future suspects. I'm not sure this is substantiated.
  - iguy 8y ago
    The 99% obviously means that (at best!) that they don't bring cases they may lose to trial, and isn't really an achievement. But GGP realusername's claim was that brutal policing drives crime. Places which have brutal policing and genuinely low crime are some evidence against this, even if you don't wish to emulate the brutality. (Whether the USSR had low levels of street crime I actually don't know -- is this known? But few deny that Japan and Singapore are pretty damn safe.)

amarant 8y ago

[citation needed] you won't know if it works until you try, has there been any experimental applications of the nordic model in the US that show it to be uneffective? there has been at least one in canada that I'm aware of,(admittedly only targeting youth offenders, so not conclusive, but at least an indication I guess) and the results were pretty good: https://theconversation.com/judges-sentence-youth-offenders-to-chess-with-promising-results-96172 https://theconversation.com/judges-sentence-youth-offenders-... edit to add, I'm not sure you can call the Canadian trail a copy of "the nordic system" but it is similar to it in that it focuses on rehab rather than punishment. I like to think you could adapt from "the nordic system" to make it work in the us.

nostalgeek 8y ago
> [citation needed] Norway doesn't have a network of violent gangs sitting in their prisons. > I'm not sure you can call the Canadian Canada is mostly on the path to copy US when it comes to gang violence.
- aqme28 8y ago
  > Norway doesn't have a network of violent gangs sitting in their prisons. Is this something that allows them to have a rehabilitative prison system, or something that is caused by having a rehabilitative prison system?
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Its something that is caused by the vast majority of people in the country being white Norwegian citizens. They have very few people (comparatively) who are social outcasts on the basis of being from somewhere else or not speaking the language or being a different color or all three. There is much less need for gangs as an alternative path to acceptance by a group.
    - braythwayt 8y ago
      There are lots and lots of very violent criminal gangs made up of white people from the US who speak English. Many of them are, in fact, white supremacist gangs. I do not see any evidence that gangs have anything to do with being immigrants. I think gangs have something to do with a culture having an underclass.

iguy 8y ago

For an interesting discussion of this, I recommend this discussion of Glenn Loury with Adaner Usmani. https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/53070 https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/53070 Usmani believes that something like the Nordic model would work in the US. I don't think Loury is buying any of it (and he knows quite a bit about this topic, quantitatively too) but is a model of polite, serious, engagement.

gremlinsinc 8y ago
Do you think a not-for-profit company could start a prison, modeled after a nordic 'open' prison, as a sort of 'trial' and get support in a state to try it out? I think the only way to make inroads might be to somewhat circumvent the government. Build something that has a track record of true reform, and maybe eventually hold a monopoly on prisons that actually work and serve the purpose of reform over 'penance'.
- iguy 8y ago
  This is an interesting thought. If the US is going to contract out its prison-keeping (as it does, and at spectacularly high costs) then it would be great if this could allow for a wide variety of experiments. Charter Prisons, perhaps. I don't know exactly how you'd organise this, I guess you want to score them by recidivism rates (and high-school diplomas?) with massive penalties for escapes / deaths etc? Unlike charter schools you could assign prisoners truly randomly, statewide, for good statistics. No doubt there are lessons to be learned from many countries' systems. Maybe we should encourage foreign companies to enter this market. I'm personally dubious that the Nordics have some secret sauce (to adapt Milton Friedman's quip, have you heard about the Swedish-American prison gangs?) but would love to be proven wrong.
  - gremlinsinc 8y ago
    I like the idea of a more-ethical not-for-profit, that is required to spend or lose all money at end of year, and has a CEO cap of say 150x employee average. Could have some sort of investment scheme setup too, that inmates can buy into, and some of the 'left-over' could go into that giving them a little nest egg when they get out to cushion themselves and prevent recidivism. The 'bonus' could be tied to performance/behavior/etc... and it could be 'will-able'.. in case you're a lifer, or die in prison, your family will have some benefit. A lot of poverty is because the breadwinner is in prison...if the breadwinner could still win bread while in prison it might positively effect poverty quite a bit.

arcticbull 8y ago

The US prison system is fantastic at one thing: teaching anyone who goes in how to be a criminal. You dehumanize people, pack them in tight, 2-to-a-cell in solitary confinement, and force them to fight each other to survive. They gang up for self defense, fall into negative paths and those follow them outside. They can't get jobs outside because nobody in the US will hire a criminal. Now they have no money, nowhere to live, no support system, no healthcare (because God forbid) and no way to make a living. They didn't learn to survive outside, they commit crimes and they're back in. 75% recidivism [1] seems almost low for such a process doesn't it? At least inside they get food, housing, healthcare and work - talk about socialism. Which other societies can you point to that don't have prison systems that focus on rehabilitation? Do you have data that shows their recidivism rates are lower? People don't want to be criminals, they want to live, but they don't all know how. Clearly the system you advocate is an abject failure at preventing crime, maybe it's time to open yourself up to new processes? It literally can't get much worse. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is-so-successful-2014-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is...

nostalgeek 8y ago
> Clearly the system you advocate is an abject failure at preventing crime, maybe it's time to open yourself up to new processes? It literally can't get much worse. I advocated for nothing, if you read my message I'm not saying one system is better than the other. I'm just saying adopting the nordic model isn't going to work with a society with such a level of violence like the USA. > People don't want to be criminals, they want to live, but they don't all know how. Plenty of people want to make money the easiest way possible, and if it involves committing crimes like murdering people they'll do that. You are assuming everybody is like you and follow basic humanism. Well some don't.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  How do you know the Nordic model won't work if you don't try it? Do you have data to indicate that Nordic model prisons don't work if there's violence? Citation needed or it's not a helpful anecdote. Did you know they're trying it in North Dakota? [1] By making this kind of unsubstantiated claim in support of the system as-is without making any suggestions of your own you're implicitly advocating for the status quo. And of course some people have severe criminality issues but IMO those should be treated. Even treated as mental health issues. [1] https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2017/07/north-dakota-norway-prisons-experiment/ https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2017/07/north-dako...

zumu 8y ago

> You can try to transpose the Nordic model in US all you want it is not going to work because these are different societies bound by different civil contracts and cultures. The point isn't we should perfectly copy the "Nordic model" -- the point is criminals in the US would be better rehabilitated if we tried to rehabilitate them.